THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  FOG 


B  TOlUam  DuMcB  pellec 

THE  GREATER  GLORY 
THE  FOG 

DRAG 


THE    FOG 

A  NOVEL 

BY 

WILLIAM  DUDLEY  PELLEY 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1925 


Copyright,  JQ2I, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 

All  rights  reserved 


PmiNTIO    IH    TH«   UNITtD    STATES    O7    AMERICA 


TO  MY  OWN  BOY  AT  EIGHTEEN 


"  DANDELION  FARM,'* 
PASSUMPSIC,  VT. 
June  23,  1921. 


2137S03   ! 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  ONE 

DRIZZLE  AND  MURK 

CHAPTER  >AGE 

I    THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD 3 

II    THE  DRESDEN  DOLL 12 

III  MORE  PARENTS       21 

IV  THE  FAIRY  FOUNDLING 31 

V    IMPRESSIONS 3$ 

VI    THE  ODD  STICK 43 

VII    EXQUISITE  THINGS 51 

VIII    PRAYER 58 

IX    BENDING  THE  TWIG 76 

X    THE   SEX 89 

XI    POET  IN  HOMESPUN 102 

XII    FIRST  COMPLICATIONS        120 

XIII  GOD  AND  THINGS 131 

XIV  CONSIDER  THE  WORM 141 

XV    VALLEY   LAMPS 160 

XVI    MORE  ROMANCING 167 

XVII    VALLEYS  OF  AVALON 187 

XVIII    ANOTHER   CASE 203 

XIX    TACT  AND  DISCRETION 213 

XX    SIDE-TRACKED 227 


viii  CONTENTS 

BOOK  TWO 
SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS 

CHAPTER  PAG1 

I  Too   EASY   MONEY 245 

II  GROPING   HORRIBLY 267 

III  GOOD  RESOLUTIONS 291 

IV  POOR  Sow's  EAR 297 

V  ALWAYS   JUSTIFIED 306 

VI  INFINITE  PATIENCE 316 

VII  FINE  FEATHERS 326 

VIII  DRIFTING 347 

IX  THE  LAST  STRAW 353 

X  FIRST  LIGHT 367 

XI  MAN'S  WORLD 391 

XII  UNTIL   WHEN? 401 

XIII  INTERLUDE 410 

XIV  SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS 419 

XV  THE  AMETHYST  MOMENT 439 

XVI  SYMPATHY -  ....  447 

XVII  ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES 458 

XVIII  EAST  is  WEST 474 

XIX  VIA  LOHENGRIN 484 

XX  HILL  TOPS 495 


BOOK  ONE 
DRIZZLE  AND  MURK 


THE    FOG 

CHAPTER  I 

THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD 


I  straddled,  precariously  balanced,  atop  a  seven-foot  fence 
marking  the  northern  boundary  of  the  little  Vermont  school 
yard.  As  this  was  the  opening  morning  for  the  September 
term,  I  had  left  home  painfully  dressed  in  the  full  armor 
of  country-village  scholarship.  Already  the  puckering- 
string  of  my  blouse  was  broken  and  my  new  dollar-and-a- 
quarter  boots  were  hot  upon  my  feet.  No  matter !  Noisily 
on  the  philosophical  old  boards  I  whacked  a  barrel  stave.  I 
had  aspirations  toward  making  the  lower  world  of  pinafored 
humanity  remark  nervously  of  my  valor  and  horrible  pro 
pensities  for  breaking  an  arm.  But  I  did  not  address  that 
pinafored  world  directly.  No  such  aplomb  is  possessed  by 
a  youngster  of  eight. 

A  new  boy  edged  his  way  into  the  yard  twenty  minutes 
before  the  bell  rang  and  moved  along  my  fence.  He  con 
centrated  upon  tallying  its  knotholes.  I  noted  that  he  was 
a  stranger  and  immediately  took  his  measure. 

;<  'Lo !"  I  greeted  him. 

"  'Lo,  yourself !"  he  responded. 

"What's  yer  name?"  I  demanded,  piqued. 

"Name,  name,  Puddin'  Tame;  ask  me  again  and  I'll  tell 
yer  the  same !" 

"Aw,  don't  get  fresh !"  I  advised  him.  "I  could  'do'  you 
with  one  hand  tied  behind  me  —  if  I  wanted." 

"My  ma  licks  me  if  I  fight  —  when  I'm  dressed  up.  If  it 
wasn't  for  that,  you  couldn't."  And  the  new  boy  looked 
at  me  gladiatorially,  expecting  me  to  believe  this  bravado 
without  a  question. 


4  THE  FOG 

Incipient  hostilities  were  halted  by  the  appearance  —  or 
condition  —  of  the  new  boy's  face.  Twenty-four  years  have 
passed  since  that  morning.  I  have  beheld  many  boys.  Yet 
never  since  a  freshly  molded  clay  Adam  was  pronounced  a 
reasonably  passable  job  and  stood  against  the  nearest  rock 
to  dry  has  one  human  being  looked  into  the  features  of 
another,  regardless  of  age,  and  beheld  such  freckles. 

I  once  knew  a  boy  who  had  thirty-one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  eighty-four  freckles,  not  counting  those  behind 
his  ears  or  a  few  odd  thousand  remaining,  sprinkled  across 
the  back  of  his  neck.  The  average  boy  manages  to  worry 
along  with  eighteen  or  twenty  thousand.  But  the  infinity 
of  freckles  upon  that  new  boy's  face  was  beyond  all  com 
putation.  The  Lord  might  have  known  the  number  of 
hairs  in  his  head,  but  there  He  stopped.  It  would  have  been 
hopeless  even  to  try  to  separate  those  freckles  so  to  com 
pute  them,  anyhow. 

"Aw,  you  don't  need  to  tell  me  your  old  name,"  I  con 
descended.  "You're  one  o'  them  Forges  that's  moved  up  to 
Brown's." 

"Howja  guess?" 

"I  know  by  your  freckles.  I  heard  Lawyer  Campbell 
call  your  folks  'them  freckled  Forges.'  Your  ma's  got  'em 
and  so's  your  pa.  You've  all  got  'em  —  like  measles  'n  itch." 

Instead  of  growing  more  bellicose,  the  new  boy  became 
apologetic. 

"Yeah,  but  they  ain't  got  so  many  as  me — Ma  and  Pa 
ain't.  Anyhow,  I  can't  help  it.  I  got  a  torpedoed  liver." 

"You  gotta  whatT" 

"A  torpedoed  liver !" 

"What's  a  torpedoed  liver?" 

He  tried  to  explain.  In  the  light  of  a  maturer  under 
standing,  I  assume  he  meant  a  torpid  liver.  But  I  was 
little  wiser  than  he  that  morning,  so  one  liver  was  as  good 
as  another. 

"Year,  but  they  ain't  got  so  many  as  me  —  Ma  and  Pa 
leaves.  Ma  says  all  us  Forges  has  got  too  much  iron  in 
our  blood  and  it  makes  us  rust  all  over,  outside." 

"Iron  in  yer  blood !"  I  looked  at  the  Forge  boy  incredu 
lously.  Was  he  spoofing  me  ? 

"Howja  know?  I  demanded.  "Can  yer  hear  it  clank 
together  ?" 


THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD  5 

I  had  a  mental  suggestion  of  sundry  billets  and  bars  of 
cold  steel,  wagon  springs,  old  horseshoes,  machine  castings 
circulating  through  the  new  boy's  system  and  wondered 
how  he  managed  it. 

"Naw,"  he  went  on.  "  'Tain't  that  kind  of  iron.  It's  all 
melted  or  ground  up  to  powder  or  sumpin'.  I  ain't  never 
heard  it  make  no  noise,  anyway." 

"Maybe  we  ain't  got  no  floatin'  iron  in  our  family,"  I  de 
fended,  "but  my  Aunt  Lucy's  got  sumpin'  just  as  good  and 
horrible.  She's  got  floatin'  ribs,  three  of  'em.  Betcha  you 
ain't  got  nobody  in  your  old  family  with  floatin'  ribs." 

It  was  now  the  small  Forge  boy's  turn  to  show  incre 
dulity.  And  momentarily  I  exulted. 

"But  ribs  don't  float,"  he  contradicted.  "They're  hitched 
to  yer  backbone  and  run  around  yer  stomach  like  hoops. 
I  seen  a  pitcher  of  a  man  with  his  skin  off,  once.  If  they 
was  loose  and  floated,  you'd  be  all  flat  and  hollow  and  sort 
of  pushed  in  across  your  chest." 

"Is  that  so  ?"  I  demanded  hotly.  "Maybe  you  know  my 
Aunt  Lucy's  shape  better'n  me!"  This  stranger  asked  me 
to  believe  he  had  iron  circulating  in  his  system  and  yet 
doubted  that  mere  bones  could  follow  suit. 

It  was  true  that  Aunt  Lucy's  irresponsible  ribs  had  given 
me  much  perplexity  as  to  just  where  they  floated,  or  where 
they  would  go  if  they  suddenly  lost  their  buoyancy  and 
sank.  Still,  I  knew  my  claim  had  a  basis  in  fact.  I  had 
overheard  too  many  first-hand  testimonials  of  her  abstruse 
condition  from  the  fearfully  and  wonderfully  unjointed 
lady  herself. 

Before  I  could  conjure  up  more  human  freaks,  however, 
related  to  me  by  facetious  Nature,  with  a  diplomacy  which 
has  always  been  charming,  young  Nathan  Forge  introduced 
a  new  subject. 

"We  just  moved  to  Brown's  place  last  month  from  Gil 
berts  Mills,"  he  declared.  "And  we  got  five  bedrooms  and 
a  vegetable  cellar  and  cockroaches  an'  everything.  An'  I 
got  a  dog  named  Ned  that  don't  get  sick  when  he  catches 
skunks.  He  caught  seven  one  autumn  and  brung  'em  to 
me.  But  one  wasn't  shook  quite  dead  yet,  and  I  had  to 
stay  in  bed  a  week  while  they  buried  my  clothes.  Pa  wanted 
to  bury  me,  too,  but  Ma  wouldn't  stand  for  it !" 

"That's  nothin',"   I  countered.     "We  gotta  cat  at  our 


6  THE  FOG 

house  named  Apron-strings  'cause  she's  always  behind  you 
when  you  turn  'round.  An'  all  you  gotta  do  to  make  her 
have  kittens  is  watch  her!  My  father  says,  'Look  twice  at 
that  dratted  little  beast  and  she  has  young  all  over  the 
place.'  He's  goin'  to  dig  a  special  well  to  drown  'em  in 
when  he  gets  time.  He  said  so." 

"We  got  two  wells  over  to  our  house  already,"  Nat  re 
torted,  —  "one  to  drink  from  and  one  to  fish  things  out  of. 
Campbell's  pants  is  down  the  last  one." 

"Campbell's  pants !" 

"My  father  said  so.  Lawyer  Campbell  come  over  the 
day  we  moved  in,  to  see  about  the  hay.  He'd  bought  some 
new  pants  to  the  Center  and  had  'em  in  a  bundle.  On  the 
way  home  he  missed  'em.  When  Pa  heard,  he  says  to  Ma : 
'He  might  look  down  that  well  in  the  south  lot !  I've  fished 
everything  out  of  it  but  money!'  he  says.  'Bet  I  could  find 
Campbell's  pants  if  I  fished  long  enough.' ' 

Evidently  the  Forges  occupied  exceptionally  interesting 
premises.  I  congratulated  myself  that  I  had  been  discreet 
about  punching  Nat's  jaw.  I  would  cultivate  this  new  boy. 

Not  once  during  all  this,  however,  had  we  looked  each 
other  straight  in  the  eye.  That  is  another  unethical  thing 
between  boys  of  eight.  We  went  through  gyrations  with 
hands,  legs,  elastic  torsos.  We  kicked  at  stones  in  the  sand. 
We  pried  them  loose  and  threw  them.  But  our  faces  were 
always  averted. 

"Got  any  brothers  or  sisters  ?"  I  finally  demanded. 

"Yeah.    I  gotta  sister." 

"Pshaw!    How  old?" 

"Four.  But  she  ain't  no  good  —  only  to  tag  'round  and 
squeal  to  Ma  when  I  skip  my  chores." 

"Sure.  I  know.  Girls  always  spoil  everything.  Ain't  it 
awful?" 

"Awful's  no  name  for  it,"  agreed  Nathan. 


II 

I  learned  other  things  of  Nathan  regarding  his  family 
that  morning  and  in  the  day  and  week  ensuing. 

The  Forges  had  a  cow,  a  grievance  against  the  selectmen, 
a  hard  time  to  get  along  and  a  mortgage.  Nathan's  mother 


THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD  7 

was  five  years  older  than  his  father.  The  latter  had  once 
aspired  to  be  a  minister.  A  premature  marriage,  however, 
had  sent  him  to  the  humbler  calling  of  tapping  and  heeling 
shoes.  Along  with  farming  in  a  small  way  to  help  out  with 
domestic  expenses,  Johnathan  Forge  now  proposed  to  cobble 
shoes  at  his  new  residence  in  East  Foxboro. 

On  his  father's  side  the  boy's  ancestry  was  English,  —  that 
bigoted,  Quilpish  English  which  contends  that  a  man's  wife 
and  children  are  his  personal  chattels  and  foot-scrapers.  A 
neurasthenic  Yankee  wife  resented  the  absurdity  but  was 
too  weak-charactered  to  do  much  more  than  scream  about 
it.  It  puzzled  me  in  those  days  to  hear  him  orate  to  my 
father  about  "every  man's  house  being  his  castle."  I  could 
never  discern  evidences  of  a  "castle"  about  the  flat-roofed, 
drab-colored,  hillside  home  for  which  Johnathan  had  paid 
the  Browns  five  hundred  dollars.  Nevertheless,  he  ran  his 
castle  as  he  pleased,  and  all  the  neighbors  could  do  was 
shrug  their  individual  and  collective  shoulders  and  mind 
their  own  business. 

Johnathan  was  a  short  man  with  watery  blue  eyes.  And 
his  mouth  never  for  a  moment  failed  to  register  that  the 
world  "had  it  in"  for  him.  His  antidote  for  this  mundane 
conspiracy  was  Religion.  Religion  completely  strangled  his 
sense  of  humor  —  if  he  ever  possessed  a  sense  of  humor  — 
and  kept  it  strangled.  As  his  children  approached  ma 
turity,  he  went  to  and  fro  in  the  earth  and  moved  up  and 
down  in  it  with  a  stuffed  club  in  his  clothes  always  loaded 
to  the  point  of  explosion,  fearing  that  some  one  was  tread 
ing  on  his  authority.  He  took  his  religion  seriously,  Johna 
than  did,  and  it  gave  him  a  sickening  amount  of  trouble. 

Nathan's  mother  also  took  life  and  religion  seriously. 
There  was  no  other  way  to  take  it,  with  Johnathan  for  a 
husband.  As  Johnathan  aged,  he  became  stout.  As  Anna 
Forge  aged,  she  became  thin.  But  as  I  first  recall  her  in 
those  East  Foxboro  days,  she  was  a  fairly  well-rounded 
woman  with  terribly  work-reddened  hands.  She  too  had 
weak  eyes,  —  greenish,  pin-pointed  eyes.  Her  neurasthenia 
and  hard  work  ultimately  "wore  the  flesh  all  off  her",  and 
soon  she  had  contracted  the  nervous  affliction  of  a  twitch 
ing  face.  She  did  her  work  in  the  hardest  manner  possible 
and  was  always  tired.  She  had  a  sallow,  jaundiced  com 
plexion  and  it  flavored  her  days  and  nights. 


8  THE  FOG 

Nat's  little  sister  Edith  was  hardly  more  than  a  baby. 
Yet  even  at  four  years  she  had  her  father's  petulant  mouth 
and  her  mother's  whine. 

Nathan  bore  no  resemblance  to  either  parent.  He  was 
just  a  freckle-faced,  snub-nosed,  wonder-eyed,  good- 
natured,  little  country  boy.  Quickly  I  found  myself  at 
tached  to  him  and  he  became  my  chum. 

With  all  due  respect  to  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  that 
specific  sect  who  are  emphatically  all  that  the  Forges  were 
not,  the  latter  were  Methodists.  They  were  more.  The 
village  had  it  they  were  "shouting  Methodists." 

I  knew  well  enough  what  a  regular  Methodist  was.  'My 
own  father  and  mother  were  Methodists.  But  a  "shoutin' 
Methodist"  was  a  novelty  and  a  mystery.  I  flew  wildly 
from  the  Forge  shop  one  Saturday  morning  when,  after 
watching  Johnathan  at  work  on  a  pair  of  child's  shoes  for 
a  time,  I  summoned  the  nerve  to  ask : 

"Say,  Mr.  Forge,  tell  me  sumpin',  will  you  ?  I'm  a  brother 
Methodist  and  all  like  that,  you  know,  but  not  a  'shoutin' 
Methodist',  like  all  the  village  calls  you,  and,  well,  I'd  like 
to  know  what  a  'shoutin'  Methodist'  is.  Would  you  mind 
shoutin'  for  me  a  coupla  times  so's  I  can  see  how  you  do 
it  —  and  why?" 

Johnathan  not  only  shouted  for  me  but  he  threw  some 
thing  at  me  for  good  measure.  I  believe  it  was  the  nearest 
old  shoe.  Both  of  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  religion. 
I  stopped  running  only  when  I  had  crossed  the  lower  village. 
I  hid  the  balance  of  that  forenoon  under  Artemus  Wright's 
blacksmith  shop,  lamenting  that  probably  I  would  never  be 
allowed  to  play  with  my  chum  again. 

It  was  in  1897  that  the  Forges  bought  the  Brown  place. 
Rumors  of  war  filled  the  land.  If  war  came,  my  father 
was  going.  My  mother  cried  a  lot  about  it. 


in 

The  girlish  young  teacher  gave  Nat  and  me  opposite 
aisle  seats  in  school  that  autumn  morning,  though  quickly 
Nathan  went  above  me.  His  grandmother  had  taught  him 
to  read;  he  was  already  familiar  with  ^Esop's  "Fables" 
and  Grimm's  "Fairy  Tales." 


THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD  9 

Late  that  afternoon,  Nat  and  I  walked  home  together,  — 
down  the  hill,  through  East  Foxboro  village,  past  the 
Methodist  and  Baptist  churches,  off  on  the  Center  road  to 
ward  Brown's  hill.  The  distance  was  only  a  mile,  yet  it 
took  us  three  hours. 

Scuffing  up  the  dust,  stopping  to  throw  stones  at  trees 
or  skipping  them  across  the  surface  of  the  Causeway  —  the 
great  sheet  of  water  reaching  on  both  sides  of  the  road  just 
before  we  started  to  climb  Brown's  hill  —  day  after  day 
during  that  autumn  we  covered  that  distance  together. 

The  Causeway  does  not  look  so  "great"  now.  Nathan  and 
I  drove  over  there  the  other  day.  The  place  was  only  a 
depressing  mud  flat,  rank  with  stagnant  water,  grotesque 
stumps  and  tall  rushes,  where  town  loafers  were  trying  to 
hook  discouraged  hornpout. 

But  to  make  slow  progress  homeward  —  to  our  "chores" 
perhaps,  but  also  to  fathers  and  mothers  and  faces  and  scenes 
which  come  now  only  in  dreams,  scaring  out  chipmunks, 
sighting  an  occasional  sand  rabbit  or  woodchuck,  sensing 
the  country  air  sensuous  with  ripened  blackberry,  goldenrod, 
.nilkweed,  or  the  roadside  pines  in  Hadley's  pasture  —  for 
that  privilege  again,  dear  God,  Nathan  and  I  would  give 
of  our  lives  many  years ! 

For  this  is  the  first  sorrow  in  the  heart  of  a  man,  that 
he  should  have  known  boyhood  and  never  been  able  to  appre 
ciate  its  heritage  until  the  clocks  of  time  are  all  run  down 
and  the  chambers  of  his  heart  are  peopled  with  ghosts ! 


rv 

In  February  of  the  year  following,  the  Maine  was  mined 
in  Havana  harbor.  I  remember  my  father  coming  home 
through  a  storm  of  raw,  wet  sleet  and  leaving  his  horse  un 
harnessed  while  he  entered  the  kitchen  to  read  the  head 
lines  of  the  Boston  paper  to  my  mother.  In  great  block 
letters  on  the  front  page  was  the  grim  word  —  "WAR!" 

Neighbors  came  in  after  supper.  Opinion  had  it  that 
fighting  would  follow  at  once.  They  conversed  as  though 
death  were  in  the  house.  While  they  talked,  I  tried  to  listen. 
I  fell  asleep  under  the  sofa,  and  when  I  awoke  I  was  in  bed 
with  mother. 


io  THE  FOG 

I  could  not  understand  why  she  hugged  me  to  her  heart 
so  fiercely  and  sobbed  in  the  winter  darkness. 

Spring  came  quickly  after  that.  It  seems  only  yesterday 
that  Nat  and  I  attended  the  "flag-raisings"  and  public 
gatherings  down  on  the  village  Common,  with  the  boys  in 
blue  getting  ready  for  Chickamauga.  I  can  hear  again  the 
martial  band  music;  I  can  see  the  flash  of  the  drillmaster's 
sword  and  hear  the  thumps  of  the  rifle  butts  in  the  open 
door  of  the  town  engine  house  where  "Captain"  Jack  Hallo- 
way  was  drilling  the  Foxboro  boys.  I  watched  them  with 
throttled  heart  and  dry,  hot  throat. 

My  father  was  among  them ! 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  last  breakfast  at  home,  how 
smart  he  looked  in  his  stiff  blue  uniform  and  how  heavy  his 
rifle  felt  when  I  tried  to  lift  it  and  point  it  at  a  target. 
I  remember  too  that  he  and  mother  avoided  each  other's 
eyes  during  that  breakfast.  Mother  did  not  go  to  the  station. 
She  could  not  trust  herself.  I  tried  to  see  dad  as  the  train 
pulled  out  but  the  crowd  engulfed  me. 

All  my  life  since  he  has  been  but  a  picture  in  a  plush 
album  on  the  center-table  in  mother's  parlor  —  an  erect  little 
man  with  a  fierce  mustache,  his  slouch  hat  with  crossed- 
muskets  showing  plainly. 

Nathan's  father  did  not  go  to  war.  He  said  war  "stood 
condemned  by  Religion."  He  quit  cobbling  to  move  down 
to  the  Center  and  open  a  store. 

Micah  Baker's  eldest  son  Sela  came  home  on  a  furlough 
the  following  autumn.  I  remember  his  rumpled  soldiering 
clothes,  the  rakish  angle  of  his  hat,  how  he  stood  with  his 
back  to  the  kitchen  range,  warming  himself.  He  had  been 
ill  with  fever  and  wore  an  overcoat,  roughly  tied  at  the 
neck  with  a  piece  of  rope.  My  mother's  face  was  ashen 
as  she  waited  for  him  to  speak.  As  he  was  about  to  leave, 
he  remarked  quietly: 

"Herb  wanted  I  should  tell  you  his  last  thoughts  was  of 
you  and  the  boy.  And  ...  he  didn't  suffer  no  more'n 
could  be  expected.  He  said  especially  to  tell  the  boy  his 
dad's  sorry  he  can't  be  on  hand  to  help  him  as  he  grows  to 
manhood." 

That  summer  we  sold  the  farm,  mother  being  unable  to 
work  it  with  father  never  coming  back.  We  also  moved 
down  to  the  Center.  Mother  happened  to  get  a  house  near 


THIS  FRECKLED  WORLD  n 

the  Forges.  So  Nathan  and  I  set  our  little  feet  upon  the 
long  journey  that  begins  in  vales  of  opal  mystery  and  the 
vvondertime  of  early  childhood,  winds  pathetically  through 
twenty  years  of  fog  while  growing  boys  are  groping  to  find 
themselves  and  hew  their  niche  and  accomplish  their  task, 
.  .  .  knows  perhaps  a  few  golden  hours  of  life's  philosophic, 
sunlit  afternoon,  then  ends  in  an  afterglow  of  still  greater 
mystery  out  behind  the  farthest  star. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   DRESDEN   DOLL 


Caleb  Gridley,  the  girl's  father,  ran  the  tannery  in  the 
larger  town  of  Paris,  twenty  miles  west  of  the  Foxboros. 
He  was  a  big-bodied,  small  headed  man,  with  iron  fists,  a 
paving-block  jaw  and  legs  like  telephone  poles.  Some  of  his 
words  weigh  seven  to  the  pound  and  he  did  not  secure  them 
from  his  Bible,  either,  if  he  ever  read  his  Bible. 

Mrs.  Clementina  Gridley,  the  girl's  mother,  claimed  she 
was  related  on  her  mother's  side  to  a  duchess.  Then  to 
double  rivet  the  exclusive  ancestry,  on  her  father's  side  she 
had  vague  claims  to  a  relative  who  had  crossed  on  a  certain 
well-known  occasion  to  this  stern  and  rock-bound  coast, 
landing  at  Plymouth  and  marking  the  commencement  of  the 
antique  furniture  business.  Mrs.  Gridley  was  short  and  in 
upper  contour  resembled  a  barrel.  She  clothed  herself 
and  little  daughter  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  both  of 
them  toiled  not,  neither  did  they  spin.  She  brought  the  first 
lorgnette  to  Paris,  hung  its  first  pair  of  sunfast  overdrapes, 
called  old  Bill  Chew,  the  colored  man-of-all-work,  the 
"coachman",  affected  to  be  shocked  when  old  Caleb  blew  his 
tea  in  a  saucer  and  tried  unsuccessfully  to  start  a  local 
aristocracy. 

These  two  —  a  mother  with  an  ingrowing  consciousness  of 
her  own  grandeur  and  a  father  who  endured  it  because  he 
was  too  engrossed  in  making  money  to  give  his  family 
much  attention  —  were  the  little  Gridley  girl's  mental,  moral 
and  spiritual  handicaps.  More  than  one  good  woman's 
fingers  itched  to  paddle  her ;  more  than  one  good  man  would 
have  counted  it  a  special  dispensation  from  Providence  if 
he  could  have  spent  five  minutes  alone  with  her  and  thor 
oughly  boxed  her  ears.  But  Bernie's  extremities  were  never 
paddled  and  Bernie's  ears  were  never  boxed. 


THE  DRESDEN  DOLL  13 

At  four,  little  Bernice  was  told  she  was  made  of  better 
clay  than  the  ordinary  run  of  Eve's  daughters  and  at  six 
she  was  sure  of  it.  At  eight  she  frequently  mentioned  the 
family  "blood."  At  ten  she  had  queried  Mrs.  Joseph 
Fodder  if  "common  children  were  not  terribly  coarse  and 
mortifying"  and  "why  did  the  Creator  ever  make  the  lower 
classes  so  disgustingly  prolific?" 

Yet  the  little  snob  was  pretty,  pretty  as  a  Dresden  doll. 
And  the  Duchess  kept  her  starched  and  ironed  and  curled 
and  furbelowed  until  the  tired  mothers  of  the  disgustingly 
prolific  lower  classes  gave  up  all  competition  in  despair. 

For  the  opposite  and  lower  end  of  the  social  seesaw  the 
Forges  as  a  family  would  have  answered  as  well  as  any  caste 
exhibit  to  the  county.  Living  in  Foxboro  Center  was 
enough.  Could  any  social  good  come  out  of  Foxboro  Center  ? 
Certainly  not!  Mute,  inglorious  Miltons  might  infest  the 
place,  but  the  Gridleys  —  at  least,  the  female  Gridleys — 
aspired  to  nothing  in  common  with  mute,  inglorious  Miltons. 


II 

It  was  a  pleasant  July  afternoon,  after  we  had  moved 
to  the  Center,  that  the  head  of  the  House  of  Gridley  hitched 
his  sleek  black  mare  to  a  neat  piano-box  buggy  and  drove 
twenty  miles  eastward  to  call  upon  the  House  of  Forge. 
It  was  not  a  social  call.  The  head  of  the  House  of  Gridley 
left  all  such  nonsense  to  his  Duchess.  John  Forge  owed  old 
Caleb  three  lapsed  payments  for  harness  leather  and  old 
Caleb  intended  "to  get  his  money  or  bust  hell  wide  open." 

When  he  drove  forth  from  the  Gridley  gates  to  "bust 
hell  wide  open"  that  afternoon  beside  him  was  the  Dresden 
doll.  She  was  ironed  and  starched  and  curled  and  furbe 
lowed  —  as  usual  —  and  she  kept  the  sun  from  her  peach- 
bloom  complexion  by  a  tiny,  beribboned  parasol.  They  had 
not  ridden  a  block  before  old  Caleb  referred  to  this  parasol. 
He  said,  "Keep  that  trick  umbrella  away  from  my  hat  or 
I'll  smash  it!"  Old  Caleb  was  not  at  all  aristocratic  like 
his  Duchess. 

The  Gridleys  reached  Foxboro  Center.  John  Forge  was 
at  home,  "getting  in"  his  hay.  Arrived  there,  old  Caleb 
descended,  backed  the  mare  around  and  unhooked  her  check- 


14  THE  FOG 

rein.  He  trusted  her  to  remain  without  hitching,  so  long 
as  her  nose  was  in  the  clover  growing  outside  the  Forge 
front  fence.  Thereupon  Caleb  went  down  into  the  fragrant 
hayfields  in  search  of  Johnathan.  The  mare  spread  her 
front  legs  and  began  to  enjoy  herself. 

Little  Bernice-Theresa's  first  maneuver  was  to  unwind 
the  reins  from  the  whip.  Holding  them  in  one  hand  and 
the  foolish  little  parasol  in  the  other,  she  greatly  hoped 
sundry  persons  would  appear  and  remark  upon  what  a  mar 
velous  child  was  this,  who  could  assume  jurisdiction  of  an 
untied  mare  while  her  elders  were  flagrantly  absent. 

It  may  be  recorded  that  some  one  did  appear ;  Nathan 
Forge  "materialized"  beside  the  picket  fence  and  the  drama, 
old  as  the  hills  eternal,  was  commenced. 

Nathan  Forge,  living  in  Foxboro  Center,  was  naturally 
of  the  earth,  earthy.  He  was  likewise  of  the  soil,  soily, 
very  much  soiled  in  comparison  with  the  starched  and 
beribboned  daintiness  of  little  Bernice-Theresa.  His  hair 
needed  cutting;  his  eyes  were  vague.  His  face  had  grown 
a  few  odd-thousand  additional  freckles  with  the  summer 
vacation  and  one  great  toe  was  wrapped  in  a  horribly  un 
sanitary  rag. 

This  product  of  the  disgustingly  prolific  lower  classes 
beheld  the  smart  rig  halted  before  the  house  and  was  seized 
with  an  exasperating  interest. 

Now  every  one  who  has  been  a  boy,  or  who  owns  a  boy, 
appreciates  that  while  sisters  are,  generally  speaking,  of 
no  earthly  consequence  or  account  whatsoever,  there  are 
girls  and  girls!  This  is  better  explained  by  studying  the 
behavior  of  such  a  boy  in  propinquity  with  a  feminine 
stranger  who  had  first  been  properly  starched  and  ironed 
and  curled  and  furbelowed,  though  not  conventionally  in 
troduced. 

The  boy  does  not  place  his  feet  upon  the  surface  of  the 
world  in  a  methodical,  orderly  manner,  maintaining  himself 
in  a  status  of  physical  poise  and  bodily  rectitude.  He 
demonstrates  the  difference  between  girls  and  girls  by  the 
knots  in  which  he  proceeds  to  tie  his  spine.  No  boy  ties  his 
spine  into  knots  for  his  sister.  So  Nat  made  his  first 
concessions  to  The  Sex  by  starting  to  wind  himself  in  and 
out  through  the  holes  where  pickets  were  missing  in  his 
father's  fence. 


THE  DRESDEN  DOLL  15 

I  forego  a  record  of  the  twistings  and  turnings,  the  writh- 
ings  and  contortions,  which  ensued  to  attract  the  attention 
of  the  Fayre  Ladye  and  bind  her  to  his  chariot  forever. 
He  did  not  neglect  to  rub  his  backbone  on  the  gatepost  four 
times,  whirl  about  without  upsetting  himself  three,  hit  the 
trunk  of  an  adjacent  tree  with  stones  twice,  and  balance  a 
stick  on  his  nose  once.  Then  he  climbed  the  gate  and 
swung  head  downward  in  horrible  danger  of  dashing  out 
his  brains. 

"Lo !"  he  greeted.    And  he  grinned. 

The  crass  effrontery,  the  Use  majeste,  of  daring  to  address 
Her  Royal  Highness  was  bad  enough.  But  that  grin! 

Bernice-Theresa  Gridley  sat  stunned.  She  could  con 
jure  up  no  phase  of  etiquette  for  meeting  the  situation  but 
a  posture  of  frigid  silence  and  staring  stiffly  ahead.  He 
was  less  than  the  dust  beneath  her  carriage  wheel.  True, 
he  wasn't  yet  beneath  her  carriage  wheel  but  he  might  land 
there  in  a  moment  if  he  didn't  stop  trying  to  twist  himself 
into  a  human  interrogation  point.  Why  didn't  her  father 
come?  Oh,  the  mortification  of  it! 

"Say,  what's  yer  name?"  persisted  this  awful  progeny 
of  the  lower  classes. 

A  numbing  silence. 

Then,  though  embarrassed  with  his  daring,  Nathan  an 
nounced  : 

"That  ain't  the  way  to  drive  a  horse.  Girls  don't  know 
nothin'  bout  animals,  anyhow.  I  know  how  to  drive  a  horse 
better'n  that!  I'll  climb  up  there  and  show  yer!" 

Bernice-Theresa  jumped. 

"You  horrid  boy!"  she  shrieked.  "If  you  as  much  as 
touch  one  of  these  buggy  wheels,  I'll  have  my  father  put 
you  in  jail  where  the  rats  will  run  right  over  your  face!" 
It  was  the  most  hideous  fate  that  Bernice-Theresa's  nine 
years  could  conceive. 

"Huh!  I  ain't  afraid  o'  rats!  We  caught  a  big  one  in 
our  trap  last  night.  You  stay  here  and  I'll  fetch  him !  You 
could  take  him  home  and  stuff  him  and  trim  up  a  room  with 
him." 

Acting  on  this  generous  impulse,  Nathan  quitted  the  gate 
and  ran  to  get  the  rigor-mortis  exhibit.  And  in  the  ensuing 
moments,  confronted  by  the  horror  of  his  return,  little 
Bernice-Theresa  suffered  all  the  tortures  of  the  damned. 


16  THE  FOG 

A  filthy,  intimate  boy  from  the  disgustingly  productive  lower 
classes  had  gone  to  bring  her  a  rat!  Dead!  He  would 
handle  it.  He  might  even  drop  it  in  the  buggy.  She  must 
fly  while  flying  was  possible. 

But  she  could  not  climb  down  from  the  vehicle  and  fly 
with  legs.  That  would  be  common  and  crude ;  beside,  where 
in  the  vicinity  would  she  fly?  No,  it  was  far  more  con 
sistent  for  the  daughter  of  a  Duchess  to  fly  with  a  horse 
and  buggy.  Therefore,  ere  the  unspeakable  vulgarian  could 
return,  Bernice-Theresa  got  into  action. 

She  shut  her  parasol  and  separated  the  reins.  She  nearly 
pulled  herself  from  the  slippery  seat,  straining  to  raise  the 
mare's  unwilling  head  from  the  clover.  The  animal's  flank 
was  slapped  sharply.  When  Nathan  returned  to  the  gate, 
the  road  in  front  of  the  house  was  empty. 

Nathan  headed  for  the  lower  mowing.  He  approached 
old  Caleb  without  introduction. 

"You  gotta  walk  home,  mister!"  was  his  way  of  an 
nouncing  the  news.  "Or  else  you  better  chase  your 
buggy.  Yer  horse  has  runned  off  with  it  hitched  behind 
him !" 

Old  Caleb  came  up  through  the  Forge  yard  in  four- foot 
jumps.  He  stopped  for  a  speechless  instant  at  the  gate. 

"If  you're  goin'  right  home,  you  might  tell  her  I  didn't 
mean  to  scare  her,"  explained  Nathan.  "We  caught  this 
rat  yesterday  and  I  was  going  to  let  her  have  it " 

"You  little  blatherskite!  Scared  her,  did  you?  So  she 
took  the  lines  and  drove  off  home!"  Caleb  shook  his 
knotty  fist  under  John  Forge's  nose.  "If  my  girl's  hurt, 
I'll  sue  you  for  this !  I'll  sue  you  anyhow,  for  the  leather." 

Thereupon  old  Caleb  started  after  the  rig  in  ludicrous 
hops. 

Hours  later  he  reached  Paris.  His  paving-block  jaw 
was  still  adamant  but  he  had  discovered  no  traces  of  buggy, 
daughter  or  wreckage  en  route.  By  a  miracle  Bernice- 
Theresa  had  reached  home  without  mishap.  The  tragedy 
was  this:  Finding  at  length  that  she  had  arrived  at  her 
destination  in  safety,  all  parental  solicitude  vanished.  Caleb 
Gridley  took  the  progeny  of  a  Duchess  across  his  knee  and 
spanked  her! 

As  a  result  of  that  spanking,  his  wife  made  his  life  so 
miserable  that  he  sued  Johnathan  Forge  at  law.  He  had 


THE  DRESDEN  DOLL  17 

to  vent  his  spleen  somewhere.  And  a  week  later,  being 
served  with  papers  by  the  sheriff,  Johnathan  Forge  also 
had  to  vent  his  spleen  somewhere  and  went  in  search  of  a 
freckled-faced  little  boy. 

Without  explanation,  simply  desiring  something  weak  on 
which  to  wreak  his  temper,  stifling  his  conscience  with  the 
argument  that  the  boy's  misbehavior  had  frightened  the 
Dresden  doll  and  precipitated  the  whole  calamity,  "Brother" 
Forge  of  the  local  church  belabored  a  contorting  little  body 
with  a  harness  tug  until  screams  and  howls  brought  his 
mother. 

Nat  left  his  father  and  his  mother  "having  it  out."  He 
limped  painfully,  still  sobbing,  up  the  road  to  my  house. 
We  climbed  to  our  haymow  together  and  Nathan  finished 
his  weeping  down  beside  me  in  the  hay. 


in 

That  was  the  first  time  Nathan  and  I  seriously  discussed 
The  Sex,  —  when  the  boy's  grief  was  spent  and  in  its  wake 
came  philosophy. 

"Gee,  but  she  was  pretty,  Billy,"  he  confided.  "She  was 
different,  too,  than  girls  here  'round  Foxboro.  I  sort  of 
felt  funny  in  my  insides  when  I  seen  her.  Mabel  Turner 
now  —  she's  fat  and  red- faced  and  her  clothes  is  always 
coming  apart  somewheres.  Mary  Anderson,  she's  always 
laughin'  and  makin'  fun  of  my  freckles,  and  Alice  Blake's 
got  freckles  worse'n  me,  and  warts  besides.  But  this  girl 
—  gee,  Billy,  she  was  swell.  I  wonder  why  was  it  I  felt  so 
funny  about  her  right  off  as  soon  as  I  seen  her.  I  never 
felt  that  way  about  no  girl  before.  Most  girls  is  —  well, 
just  girls !  —  you  know !  —  no  good !" 

"That's  love!"  I  declared  largely. 

"Love?"  Nathan  was  awed.  "Then  love's  swell,  ain't 
it?" 

"Depends  how  you  look  at  it.  Sometimes  it  is.  Then 
again  it  ain't." 

Nat  pondered  this.  It  was  deep.  Finally  in  a  whisper 
he  asked : 

"Billy,  why  is  it  that  girls  is  different  from  boys,  and 
women  from  men  ?" 


i8  THE  FOG 

"It's  on  account  of  babies,"  I  expatiated.  "Benny  Mayo 
said  so.  A  man  told  him  once." 

"How,  on  account  o'  babies,  Billy?" 

Thereupon  I  recounted  boyhood's  version  of  the  intrica 
cies  of  obstetrics,  as  viewed  by  boys  who  are  not  wholly 
fools. 

I  hold  no  brief  for  myself.  The  parent  who  will  not 
concede  that  mere  children  do  not  seek  light  on  life's  great 
est  mystery  —  where  do  people  come  from  ?  —  and  ultimately 
discuss  it,  is  an  ass.  Only  there  was  no  perverted  mischief 
on  my  part  about  it.  Nathan  wanted  to  know  something. 
I  possessed  the  information.  It  was  no  more  than  as  if  he 
had  asked  me  how  to  make  a  willow  whistle  or  bait  a  chuck- 
trap. 

"Gee!"  exclaimed  Nathan  frightenedly,  "suppose  it's  so, 
Billy?" 

"There's  sumpin  to  it,"  I  averred.  "We're  all  here,  ain't 
we?  I'm  gonna  ask  my  Ma." 

"So'm  I,"  declared  my  chum. 

Nathan  finally  started  homeward.  That  night  he  sought 
elucidation  for  the  mystery  exactly  where  it  was  normal  he 
should  seek  it,  —  from  his  mother.  But  instead  of  supplying 
his  need  in  a  healthy,  kindly  fashion  fitted  to  his  years, 
Anna  Forge  did  a  narrow,  vicious  thing. 

She  whirled  on  her  small  son  with  an  alacrity  which 
startled  the  senses  out  of  him.  And  she  administered  a 
shock  to  the  sensitive  boy  whose  effects  did  not  entirely 
vanish  with  manhood. 

"Who  put  such  ideas  into  your  head?"  she  demanded 
hysterically. 

"Nobody  'specially,  Ma.    I  was  just  thinkin',  that's  all." 

"No !  Some  one  put  the  idea  into  your  head.  Who  was 
it?" 

Nathan  began  to  cry. 

"B-B-Billy  and  me  was  talkin'  about  it  in  the  haymow 
this  afternoon." 

"So  Billy  did  it !  I  shall  see  Billy's  mother  in  the  morn 
ing  and  have  him  horsewhipped  for  what  he  told  you." 

Nathan  began  to  cry  harder. 

"Why,  Ma?"  he  demanded  in  panic. 

"Because  all  such  things  are  vile  and  dirty  and  filthy  and 
horrible!  Little  boys  who  think  them  don't  go  to  heaven 


THE  DRESDEN  DOLL  19 

and  have  angels  love  them.  They  go  to  the  Bad  Place  and 
are  burned  in  fire  forever  and  ever.  You  know  how  it 
hurt  when  you  burnt  your  finger  on  my  flatiron  yesterday? 
Imagine  you  were  burnt  all  over  your  body  like  that  —  and 
there  was  no  way  to  stop  it  and  you  just  had  to  suffer 
terribly  with  never  a  moment  to  sleep  or  forget.  That's  what 
happens  to  bad  little  boys  who  say  such  things  or  even 
think  them !" 

"But  why  is  it  bad,  Ma?  Billy  didn't  mean  to  be  bad. 
We  just  wondered,  that's  all.  I  can't  help  thinking  about 
'em,  can  I?" 

"Oh,  what  a  wicked,  wicked  little  boy!  Your  dear 
mother  will  be  up  in  heaven  and  she  won't  have  any  little 
son  with  her.  Her  little  son  will  be  down  in  the  fires  of 
hell  —  burning  for  always  and  always !" 

The  Forge  woman  pictured  eternal  torment  so  vividly 
that  Nathan  grew  hysterical.  When  the  woman  had  the 
boy  worked  into  such  a  state  that  he  was  too  terrified  to 
stay  alone  in  the  dark  because  of  the  devils  waiting  to  grab 
him,  she  made  him  promise  never  to  think  about  girls  or 
women  or  babies  again.  Sniveling,  the  little  shaver  prom 
ised. 

His  mother  went  to  her  bedroom  and  narrated  the  affair 
to  her  husband.  Johnathan  was  for  thrashing  the  boy 
soundly  at  once. 

"No  —  you've  given  him  one  whipping  to-day  and  one 
whipping  a  day  is  enough.  I  think  I've  scared  him  so 
badly  that  he  won't  think  of  the  subject  again.  And  to 
morrow  I  shall  certainly  see  Billy's  mother.  If  she  doesn't 
chastise  her  dirty-minded  young  one,  I  shan't  let  Nathan 
go  on  playing  with  him." 

Grumbling,  John  Forge  was  persuaded.  Next  day  Mrs. 
Forge  went  into  indignant  session  with  my  mother. 

"Yes,  Billy  catechised  me  in  the  same  way,"  the  latter  re 
sponded.  "I  told  him  what  I  thought  it  sane  and  reasonable 
to  tell  a  lad  of  his  years.  He'll  learn  it  outside,  anyway. 
Probably  he'll  get  a  sordid,  vulgar,  perverted  version.  I 
don't  believe  you  can  scare  these  things  from  the  minds 
of  live-wire  children,  nor  stifle  the  most  normal  impulses 
of  growing  boyhood.  I  for  one  shan't  try.  As  my  boy 
grows  I  want  him  to  feel  that  he  can  come  to  his  mother 
at  any  time  with  his  problems,  especially  his  girl  problems, 


20  THE  FOG 

without  having  the  immortal  daylights  scared  out  of  him 
or  made  to  feel  that  he's  a  criminal.  It  ain't  natural,  Anna 
Forge,  and  so  it  ain't  common  sense." 

"My  boy  shall  not  go  on  playing  with  yours,  if  that's  the 
sort  of  thing  they're  talking." 

"Suit  yourself,  Anna  Forge.  I  believe  your  philosophy's 
wrong  and  you'll  live  to  rue  it." 

"I  don't  have  to  be  told  what's  decent  for  my  own  young 
one !" 

"Maybe  you  do  and  maybe  you  don't.  That's  yet  to  be 
proven." 

Anna  Forge  stalked  homeward.  The  two  women  did 
not  speak  for  a  month.  But  Nat's  mother  had  done  a 
malicious  thing  that  day.  She  had  only  turned  the  barb 
of  my  friend's  curiosity  inward  and  prodded  that  worst 
enemy  of  the  human  race  to  attack  her  small  son  viciously : 
Repression. 


CHAPTER  III 

MORE   PARENTS 


Over  the  meadows  and  far  away  in  the  dreamy  hush 
of  summer  days ;  lying  amid  scented  haycocks  and  watching 
the  castling  clouds  drift  away  like  floating  fairy  isles  in  a 
sea  of  turquoise;  listening  to  the  church  bells  of  a  quiet 
Sunday  morning;  hearing  the  clear,  distant  note  of  a 
trombone  across  the  valley  from  some  farmhouse  in  the 
afterglow;  watching  the  log  sleds  toil  up  the  hill  past  our 
homes  into  the  cold,  carmine  glory  of  winter  sunsets.  Boy 
hood's  Memory  Book  is  an  anthology  of  little  things  — 
sweet,  sad,  haunting,  all  vital,  ever  poignant  with  heart- 
hunger  —  calling  us  back  to  live  in  their  atmosphere  again, 
if  only  for  a  single  blessed  day. 

Somehow  Nat  and  I  fail  to  remember  the  ending  of  the 
Spanish  war  as  we  recall  the  beginning.  Occasionally  we 
would  be  loitering  about  the  station  when  trains  pulled  in 
and  sun-bronzed  men  in  rumpled  blue  would  swing  off  in 
pairs,  with  blanket  rolls  around  their  bodies,  thump  their 
rifles  down  in  the  corner  of  the  nearest  lunchroom  and 
appear  too  ravenously  hungry  even  to  flirt  with  the  girl 
who  presided  behind  the  sandwiches  and  wedges  of  leathery 
pie  beneath  glass  globes. 

The  war  did  not  stop.  It  petered  out.  I  will  not  say 
I  did  not  cry  many  times  in  the  night  when  my  mother 
cried,  because  both  of  us  missed  father.  But  the  war  was 
not  for  Nathan  and  me,  —  not  for  our  generation  to  bear. 
Our  war  was  coming  later.  We  found  food  of  some  kind 
available  when  we  hungered  and  boys  are  not  epicures. 
So  long  as  that  food  was  forthcoming,  and  we  had  a  place 
to  sleep  at  night,  wars  or  endings  of  wars  affected  us  not. 
We  were  too  occupied  with  things  that  were  close  to  us  and 
close  to  the  soil. 


22  THE  FOG 

One  afternoon  in  the  spring  of  1917,  before  we  went  to 
war,  Nathan  and  I  were  walking  together  when  we  came 
upon  a  crowd  of  deadly  serious  youngsters  playing  in  a 
vacant  lot.  One  boy,  tied  securely,  was  arousing  the  neigh 
borhood  with  his  shrieking. 

"We're  playin'  he's  a  German  interned  for  perdition,"  one 
of  the  lads  explained. 

"Perdition?"  exclaimed  Nathan. 

"Yeah!  Oratin'  against  the  government  and  tryin'  to 
stop  the  war  fer  them  that  wanner  fight.  Intern  fer  perdi 
tion,  doncher  understand  ?  Interned  for  perdition !" 

"Kids  don't  change  much,  Bill,"  commented  Nat,  with  a 
sad  smile,  as  we  resumed  our  way.  "Remember  the  day 
we  played  'Hang  the  Spy'  and  almost  succeeded?" 

"I  remember  it,  Nat,"  I  said.  "But  not  because  it  has 
anything  to  do  with  the  sameness  of  boyhood  in  different 
generations.  I  remember  it  for  what  happened  to  you 
afterward  —  what  you  got  for  it." 

Nathan  sighed.  We  paced  a  long  way  in  silence.  It  was 
not  hard  to  recall  the  r.ear-tragic  events  of  that  afternoon 
and  their  aftermath. 

II 

.  We  caught  Nathan  duly  as  the  Castilian  spy,  and  made 
him  "surrender  his  papers."  A  court-martial  passed  fatal 
judgment  upon  him.  He  was  led  out  beneath  one  of  the 
trees  in  Mrs.  Fairbank's  orchard  and  ordered  to  mount 
"the  scaffold",  a  dilapidated  barrel.  Around  a  high  limb 
I  succeeded  in  tying  one  end  of  a  rope.  It  had  a  slip  noose 
at  its  dangling  end  about  eight  feet  from  the  ground.  After 
much  perspiration  I  got  this  noose  over  Nathan's  head. 

"There's  too  much  slack  in  it,"  the  condemned  man  sug 
gested,  anxious  that  there  should  be  no  bungle  in  the 
ceremony  to  spoil  the  grandeur.  "When  I'm  hung,  my 
feet'll  touch  the  ground  and  then  I  won't  be!  You  bet 
ter  slip  it  further  down,  Billy  —  under  my  arms  or  round 
my  waist." 

Rather  than  reclimb  the  tree  and  retie  the  rope,  I  con 
ceded. 

A  little  French  boy  named  Beauchamp  was  commissioned 
to  kick  away  the  barrel  and  "send  the  miserable  felon  to 


MORE  PARENTS  23 

the  wrath  of  a  jealous  God."  We  had  somewhere  heard  it 
phrased  so. 

Rolland  Beauchamp  played  his  part  perfectly.  In  fact, 
the  whole  execution  was  a  bit  too  perfect.  On  a  frenzied 
run  our  mothers  started  for  that  orchard  when  from  under 
the  biggest,  highest  tree  began  the  wildest  and  most  horrible 
howling  that  ever  disturbed  the  quiet  of  pastoral  Vermont. 

The  spy,  on  being  hung,  had  thought  better  of  his  fate. 
It  wasn't  a  bit  of  fun  to  be  hung.  Yet  one  could  not  alto 
gether  blame  him.  Never  was  a  spy  hung  as  our  spy  was 
hung. 

I  had  slipped  the  noose  too  far  down  Nathan's  body. 
When  the  barrel  went  out,  the  upper  half  of  his  torso  out 
weighed  his  legs.  He  was  whipped  upside  down  in  a 
twinkling  and  hung  there  ignominiously,  kicking  wildly 
'twixt  terra  firma  and  the  stars. 

This  in  itself  wouldn't  have  been  so  distressing  if  he  had 
not  been  suspended  in  a  slipnoose.  The  more  he  kicked 
and  bellowed  the  sharper  it  tightened. 

"We  tried  to  hang  him!"  cried  the  terrified  little  French 
boy. 

"Tried!"  wailed  a  wrathful  mother  when  she  beheld  her 
offspring  suspended  upside  down,  just  out  of  reach. 

"We  could  get  him  down  with  a  ladder,  if  we  only  had 
one!"  volunteered  the  small  Mayo  boy  who  had  been  re 
sponsible  for  all  this  brilliant  business.  "Mr.  Simpson's 
got  one,  a  mile  down  the  river.  I  tell  you  what !"  he  sug 
gested  enthusiastically  to  Mrs.  Forge,  "you  come  and  ask 
my  mother  if  I  can  hitch  up  our  horse  and  I'll  go  after 
it!  I  could  make  it  in  less'n  an  hour  an'  not  half  try!" 

"And  leave  this  boy  to  be  squeezed  to  death?  I  never 
saw  a  Mayo  around  Foxboro  yet  that  wasn't  a  fool !"  Mrs. 
Forge  wrung  her  hands.  "Oh,  oh,  oh !  Somebody's  got  to 
climb  that  tree  and  cut  this  boy  down  and  do  it  quickly, 
or  he'll  die  o'  pinched  vitals!  Oh!  oh!  oh!" 

"But  if  he's  cut  down  sudden,  he'll  land  on  his  head 
and  break  his  neck,"  groaned  Mrs.  Harper.  "Why  on  earth 
should  they  hang  him  upside  down?" 

Nat's  unpremeditated  inversion  had  complicated  matters. 
And  all  this  time  the  spy  was  kicking  and  struggling  and 
bellowing  until  it  was  a  mystery  why  he  wasn't  heard  down 
in  the  business  part  of  the  town.  Moreover,  the  prospects 


24  THE  FOG 

were  that  if  he  were  left  there  much  longer,  any  attempts 
to  cut  him  down  would  be  superfluous;  he  was  coming 
down  himself  —  in  halves ! 

But  the  Providence  that  looks  after  children,  drunken 
men  and  fools  was  proverbially  kind  that  afternoon.  It 
sent  old  Amos  Winch  riding  past  atop  a  load  of  oats.  Amos 
took  note  of  a  kicking,  shrieking  boy  suspended  from  an 
apple  bough  above  a  group  of  distraught  women  and  chil 
dren  and  came  down  through  that  orchard  in  jumps.  As 
he  ran,  he  unclasped  a  big  pocketknife.  Out  on  the  limb, 
he  wound  a  taut  rope  twice  about  his  mighty  hand.  Then 
he  hacked  and  cut  above  it.  Hand  over  hand  he  hauled 
the  little  Forge  boy  up,  caught  him  firmly  by  the  collar  and 
straightened  him  out. 

Immediately  that  he  was  down  and  manifestly  unhurt, 
Mrs.  Forge  walked  over  to  a  lower  apple  bough  and  pulled 
off  a  "sucker."  She  stripped  the  switch  clean  of  leaves 
and  grasped  her  youngster  firmly  by  the  collar. 

"But  Ma!  —  I  didn't  mean  to  do  it!  Please,  Ma,  don't 
whip  me.  I  didn't  mean  to  do  it !" 

"I  suppose  you  got  hung  upside  down  like  that  acci 
dentally." 

"We  was  only  just  playing  'Hang  the  Spy'!" 

"And  scaring  your  good,  dear  mother  in  consequence  so 
she's  nearly  a  nervous  wreck.  I'm  going  to  see  you  re 
member  never  to  do  such  a  thing  again." 

"Anna!"  interposed  my  mother,  "don't  be  a  fool!" 

"You  keep  out  of  this!"  snapped  Mrs.  Forge.  "I  can 
run  my  own  young  ones  without  assistance  from  the  neigh 
bors." 

And  there,  before  that  distressed  audience,  Nathan  "got 
it  good." 

in 

I  have  not  narrated  this  episode  especially  to  excoriate 
Anna  Forge.  I  mention  it  because  —  horror  of  horrors !  — 
among  the  teams  to  be  blocked  in  the  road  by  Amos  Winch's 
cart  was  the  neat  piano-box  buggy  and  mare  of  Caleb 
Gridley.  The  Duchess  was  out  for  a  drive  with  the  Dresden 
Doll. 

Nathan  knew  that  the  princess  of  his  dreams  was  be- 


MORE  PARENTS  25 

holding  him  "catching  it."  And  the  welts  of  that  switch 
did  not  manufacture  half  as  much  pain  as  the  hurts  which 
resulted  to  his  dignity.  For  a  boy  has  dignity.  It  is  usually 
a  hard,  honest,  legitimate  dignity  in  sharp  contrast  to 
mere  self -elation  too  often  masquerading  under  that  name 
among  older  people.  And  that  boyish  dignity  is  a  heritage. 
In  after  years  it  is  the  genesis  of  that  invaluable  attribute, 
Self-respect. 

nr 

The  hanging  episode  was  scarcely  history  before  Nat  and 
I  got  into  another  scrape,  illustrating  the  brilliant  Forge 
method  of  shaping  childhood. 

The  execution  of  martial  enemies  being  a  bit  too  strenu 
ous,  the  fertile  little  Mayo  boy  hit  on  "Slave  in  the  Dismal 
Swamp."  He  assured  all  witnesses  that  it  was  capital 
sport  playing  "Slave  in  the  Dismal  Swamp." 

In  all  our  town,  however,  there  was  no  colored  boy,  let 
alone  a  small  colored  boy,  available  as  the  slave  to  escape 
and  be  hunted.  But  that  did  not  hamper  the  Mayo  boy's 
ingenuity. 

"One  of  us  can  black  himself  and  be  the  slave,"  he  sug 
gested. 

"What  with?"  I  demanded.  "Ma  won't  let  us  have  any 
matches  to  burn  cork.  Besides,  we  couldn't  get  cork  enough 
anyhow." 

"I  know  what's  good  and  black  that  we  can  get  a  lot  of," 
Benny  Mayo  promised.  "You  all  come  with  me  and  I'll 
show  you." 

He  led  us  down  behind  the  Mayo  barn.  Several  old  carts, 
hayracks  and  farm  implements  were  stored  there. 

"Now  then,  Nathan,  you  take  off  all  your  clothes  and 
we'll  black  you,"  Benny  directed.  "This  ain't  goin'  to  hurt 
you.  How  can  it?" 

"I    won't   do   it   unless    Billy   will!"    Nathan   objected 
stoutly. 

I  submitted. 

We  disrobed,  au  naturel.  The  little  Mayo  boy  and  the 
others  set  to  work  on  us. 

From  the  inside  of  the  wagon  hubs  was  scooped  the 
blackest,  deadliest  grease  the  malignity  of  man  has  ever 


26  THE  FOG 

invented.  The  axles  of  the  vehicles,  especially  one  old  dump 
cart,  were  rich  with  it. 

Over  the  sunburned  pelts  of  our  little  bodies  the  stuff 
was  smeared  in  handfuls.  It  smelled  frightfully  but  we 
remembered  how  it  must  feel  to  be  a  real  slave,  and  stood 
it  as  stoically  as  possible. 

From  head  to  foot  we  were  covered  with  the  green-black 
"goo."  Our  handlers  took  especial  care  to  rub  it  well  into 
our  hair  and  ears.  When  that  smearing  "was  called  a 
job",  we  were  Africans  with  a  vengeance.  And  the  odor 
shrieked  to  heaven. 

"But  we  can't  put  on  our  clothes  with  this  stuff  all  over 
us!"  wailed  Nat  suddenly. 

"Slaves  in  a  dismal  swamp  don't  need  no  clothes,"  the  Mayo 
boy  contended.  "Start  off  just  like  you  are  and  it'll  make 
it  harder  to  hunt  you." 

"But  somebody  might  see  us  without  any  clothes  and 
arrest  us!" 

"That's  why  it's  goin'  to  make  it  harder  to  hunt  you; 
you'll  keep  out  of  sight  better  without  clothes." 

The  dismal  swamp  was  a  cat-tail  bog  over  on  the 
Hastings  farm.  Thither  by  back  lanes  we  were  escorted, 
the  "ferocious  bloodhounds"  being  the  Mayo  boy's  sky 
terrier,  Pink,  and  Nat's  shepherd  dog,  Ned,  with  the  afore 
said  immunity  from  the  depredations  of  skunks. 

Nat  and  I  were  turned  loose  like  two  justly  celebrated 
gold-dust  twins,  minus  all  concessions  to  civilization.  And 
in  the  next  two  hours  we  became  relieved  that  there  had 
been  an  Emancipation  Proclamation. 

As  the  afternoon  waned,  the  mosquitoes  were  bad 
enough.  But  Nat's  little  sister,  Edith,  had  beheld  our 
"making-up"  from  afar,  and  about  the  time  we  entered  the 
Dismal  Swamp,  she  reached  our  mothers  and  told  her  story. 
Two  highly  exasperated,  grim-lipped  women  ultimately 
joined  the  "bloodhounds"  and  outdid  them.  For  our 
mothers  found  us  and  the  dogs  did  not. 

Splashed  with  mud  and  slime  on  top  of  our  coating  of 
axle  grease,  scratched  by  brambles  and  bruised  by  limbs 
of  dead  trees  which  protruded  from  the  most  unexpected 
places,  the  slaves  in  the  dismal  swamp  finally  found  a  soft 
spot  to  sit  down  and  weep  with  a  great  lamentation.  We 
had  a  disturbing  hunch  from  our  experience  in  the  bog 


MORE  PARENTS  27 

water  that  our  Ethiopian  camouflage  was  not  going  to  be 
removed  with  any  such  dexterity  as  the  Mayo  boy  had 
assured  us  so  glibly. 

The  posse  finally  surrounded  us.  There  was  no  es 
caping  through  that  cordon.  Our  mothers'  skirts  were  be 
draggled. 

Their  shoes  squeegeed  water  at  every  step.  But  they 
bagged  us.  And  the  expression  on  their  faces  when  they 
held  us  at  arm's  length  was  sickening.  Somehow  we  felt 
that  again  the  Mayo  boy  had  "spoofed"  us.  The  Mayo  boy 
was  not  among  those  present  when  we  were  taken  into 
custody,  by  the  way. 

"We're  slaves  in  a  Dismal  Swamp,"  explained  Nathan, 
when  his  mother  had  firmly  entwined  her  fingers  around  a 
slippery  ear. 

"Well,  in  mighty  short  order  you're  going  to  be  two 
sorrowful  boys  in  a  darned  dismal  wash-dish!"  prophesied 
that  wrathful  lady.  And  she  looked  at  my  mother,  not 
knowing  whether  to  laugh  or  to  cry. 

"Anna,"  gasped  my  horrified  mother,  "  —  suppose  —  sup 
pose  —  it  won't  wash  off !" 

"Then  I'll  set  fire  to  my  young  one  and  burn  it  off!" 
avowed  Mrs.  Forge  grimly.  Whereupon  Nathan  began 
caterwauling  and  his  asseverations  that  he  didn't  mean  to 
do  it  became  as  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbals. 

Through  the  ups  and  downs  of  thirty  years  I  have  made 
many  strange  journeys  over  many  rough  pathways.  Not 
one  of  them  has  equaled  the  aw  fulness  of  traversing  those 
two  miles  of  oozy  bog  that  summer  afternoon,  dragged 
wrath  fully  by  a  grim  woman  whose  concentration  was 
glued  on  the  impending  ordeal  of  separating  me  from 
that  unspeakable  coating  of  slime  and  grease. 

"When  I  catch  that  Mayo  young  one,"  announced  my 
mother,  "I'll  skin  him  alive!" 

"Amen !"  affirmed  Anna  Forge.  She  gave  Nathan  a  yank 
that  pulled  him  over  a  boghole  as  though  he  were  greased. 
Which  he  was.  Greased  thoroughly,  adequately,  irrev 
ocably. 

We  got  as  far  as  the  Forge  homestead,  and  my  mother 
decided  to  stop  there  and  cleanse  her  offspring  in  company 
with  her  neighbor,  rather  to  lighten  the  labor  —  to  say  noth 
ing  of  the  color  of  her  boy  —  by  sharing  it. 


28  THE  FOG 

They  tried  rain  water  and  they  tried  soap.  They  tried 
cold  water  and  they  tried  hot.  None  of  it  made  any  more 
impression  than  as  if  they'd  been  trying  to  wash  a  duck. 
They  tried  scraping  it  off  with  a  paddle,  as  one  scrapes 
butter  from  a  slice  of  bread.  In  certain  localities  this  last 
went  so  far  as  to  disclose  that  deep  down  under  the  mass 
we  were  young  humans  of  the  Aryan  persuasion.  In  our 
babyhood  we  might  even  have  been  pink.  But  at  present 
we  were  anything  but  pink.  We  were  a  sort  of  blue-mauve- 
green. 

"My  God!"  cried  the  nearly  hysterical  Mrs.  Forge. 
"There's  going  to  be  no  getting  this  off  successfully  short 
of  boiling  'em !"  Thereat,  the  woman's  neurasthenia  got  the 
better  of  her  and  she  wept. 

"Anna,  stop  your  blubbering!  I'm  going  to  try  kero 
sene,"  my  mother  announced.  "Billy  may  go  round  the 
rest  of  his  life  smelling  like  the  dirty  end  of  a  grocery 
store,  but  I'll  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  I  'seen  my 
duty  and  I  done  it.' "  And  she  whacked  a  little  French 
boy  for  meddling  with  her  washcloths. 

The  two  women  pooled  all  the  kerosene  they  could  find 
in  the  neighborhood.  It  wasn't  the  fairly  cleanly  product 
that  may  be  purchased  in  1921.  It  is  debatable  which  was 
rankest  in  taste,  feeling  or  smell  —  that  yellowish  coal  oil 
or  the  devilish  massage-muck  which  now  ran  down  our 
shivering  bodies  in  streaks.  Filling  a  tub  with  it,  mother 
started  in,  determined,  like  Grant,  to  fight  it  out  along 
that  line  if  it  took  all  summer.  The  prospects  were  that 
it  would  take  all  summer. 

I  forget  in  how  many  "waters"  of  oil,  hot  steam  and 
soapsuds  they  washed  us.  Somewhere  around  thirty- 
seven.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  figure.  So  much 
concentrated  washing  had  never  happened  to  either  of  us 
before.  Thank  God,  it  has  never  been  needed  since. 

Nat  and  I  were  two  sick  boys  —  physically  as  well  as 
spiritually  —  long  before  those  ablutions  were  completed. 
A  sizable  number  of  persons  of  color,  sold  into  servitude, 
have  undoubtedly  been  lost  in  swamps.  But  Nathan  Forge 
and  his  biographer  were  the  first  in  history  who  were  cap 
tured,  dragged  out  and  washed  in  thirty-seven  "waters" 
before  being  slated  for  additional  chastisement. 

Vividly  I  recollect  little  Nathan's  plaintive  plea  at  about 


MORE  PARENTS  29 

the  thirty-fifth  "water",  when  he  gradually  began  to  ex 
hibit  evidences  of  Caucasian  extraction. 

"Ma,  are  you  goin'  to  lick  me?"  he  demanded,  gazing 
timorously  up  into  his  mother's  twitching  countenance. 
It  was  the  fearful,  pitiful  interrogatory  of  a  naked,  shiver 
ing,  thoroughly  chastened  little  boy  who  had  taken  the  word 
of  a  fellow  man  at  its  face  value  and  discovered,  like  the 
psalmist  of  old,  that  all  men  are  liars. 

"I'm  too  done  up  to  lick  you!  I'm  going  to  let  your 
father  lick  you !"  his  mother  assured  him. 

"Anna  Forge,  are  you  crazy?"  my  mother  exploded. 

"No,  but  I'm  going  to  see  that  some  discretion  is  put  in 
his  make-up  if  I  have  to  brand  it  in  with  an  iron!" 

"You  may  brand  in  more  than  discretion,  Anna." 

"I'll  take  my  chances !" 


I  was  sobbing  —  mainly  for  Nathan's  sake  —  when  my 
mother  led  me  home.  She  wrapped  my  red,  flaccid  little 
body  in  warm  flannels  and  put  me  to  bed.  I  heard  no 
censure  for  my  part  in  the  day's  foolishness.  Only  she 
said  wearily  before  she  took  out  the  light : 

"Please,  laddie,  never  play  'Slave  in  the  Dismal  Swamp' 
again.  You  see  what  mother  had  to  do,  how  tired  she  is?" 

"Yes,  Ma!" 

"Then  always  remember,  when  a  fellow  does  something 
wrong  —  sooner  or  later  —  somehow  or  other  —  it's  his 
mother  that  pays  the  price." 

I  could  not  see  her  haggard  face  for  my  tears. 

She  laughed,  —  a  queer,  tired,  tender  laugh.  Then  she 
kissed  me  again  and  was  gone.  My  grief  was  mercifully 
merged  in  slumber. 

VI 

It  was  a  week  before  Nathan  left  his  bed.  His  father 
threw  an  ax  handle  at  me  when  I  went  around  to  the  rear 
of  the  Forge  premises  to  see  if  Nathan  could  come  out  to 
play. 

I  think  Johnathan  was  a  bit  ashamed  of  himself  and 
likewise  afraid.  He  took  this  gentle  method  of  suggesting 


30  THE  FOG 

that  the  neighbors,  particularly  the  neighbors'  offspring, 
keep  out  of  his  family  affairs.  Because  Nathan  had  dropped 
unconscious  during  his  subsequent  chastisement  and  re 
mained  unconscious  all  night.  Next  day  a  doctor  was  sum 
moned.  The  doctor  was  told  that  Nathan  must  have  eaten 
something  which  had  failed  to  agree  with  him. 

I  finally  figured  out,  in  a  boyish  way,  what  was  amiss 
in  Nathan's  relation  to  his  parents,  particularly  his  father. 

Obedience,  to  Johnathan,  consisted  in  a  child  instinctively 
knowing  beforehand  the  thing  to  which  the  parental  mind 
objected  and  avoiding  consummation  of  that  thing  like  a 
pestilence.  Then,  too,  floggings  and  thrashings  were  uni 
formly  good  for  a  youngster.  They  gave  him  character 
and  made  him  love  and  respect  his  dear  parents  when  he 
had  grown  to  manhood  and  looked  back  on  what  an  ex 
asperating  little  devil  he  had  been  and  how  much  he  had 
"tried"  those  who  had  done  the  most  for  him. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   FAIRY   FOUNDLING 


In  the  heart  of  a  man  there  are  many  chambers.  Some 
of  these  chambers  have  locked  doors  and  behind  them  the 
world  may  not  penetrate.  Dusty,  discarded  shrines  are 
there  with  the  idols  chipped  and  broken ;  coffers  rotted  with 
money  may  lie  scattered  about;  brittle  bouquets  of  faded 
flowers;  a  coffin  plate  or  two,  or  perhaps  the  more  grisly 
husks  of  dead  romances  that  arise  during  slumber  and 
break  out  wailing,  haunting  the  long,  barren  corridors  of 
the  subconscious  mind  and  only  laid  by  sunlight.  But 
among  these  chambers  somewhere  is  one  sweet,  clandestine 
room  only  unlocked  with  a  golden  key  on  a  diamond  ring, 
where  warm  and  ruddy  light  floods  out  when  the  door  is 
opened.  Luxury  awaits  him  within,  but  greater  than  lux 
ury:  the  mistress  of  his  soul,  soft-armed,  starry-eyed,  radi 
ant  with  love.  Back  over  far  years  or  few,  when  that 
mistress  entered  that  heart-chamber  and  consented  to  remain 
imprisoned  there  forever,  then  was  Everyman's  Amethyst 
Moment. 

Man,  like  the  caliphs  of  old,  may  possess  a  thousand  wives. 
But  his  heart  has  one  mistress  only  —  forever. 

There  is  another  phase  of  this  narrative  which  it  is  ex 
pedient  to  begin  in  order  to  make  long  preparation  for 
Nathan's  Amethyst  Moment.  It  starts  in  the  city  of  Spring 
field,  Massachusetts,  on  a  September  afternoon  twenty 
years  in  the  past.  Upon  an  iron  settee  at  the  edge  of  a 
Forest  Park  lily  pond  a  woman  sank  to  rest  and  to  watch 
a  group  of  shrieking  children  playing  with  the  swans. 

She  was  a  middle-aged  woman,  tall,  comely,  deep-chested, 
one  of  those  well-favored,  high-caste  matrons  vaguely  as 
sociated  with  sweeping,  trailing,  draping  house  gowns,  with 
strings  of  jet  and  jade  licking  against  her  knees  and  an 


32  THE  FOG 

exotic  perfume  clinging  about  her  personality  like  old  rose 
or  lavender. 

This  afternoon  she  was  clothed  in  black,  black  walking 
dress,  large  black  hat,  black  fur  neckpiece,  smooth  black 
gloves.  She  was  the  widow  of  a  high  army  officer,  killed 
seven  months  before  in  the  Philippines.  Her  name  was 
Gracia  Theddon  and  she  lived  —  somehow  —  on  the  income 
from  half  a  million  dollars. 

This  woman's  face  grew  wistful  as  she  watched  the  chil 
dren.  She  wanted  to  call  them  about  her.  Then  she  rea 
lized  that  seven  of  the  ten  were  clothed  alike.  The  types 
were  too  varied  to  make  them  brothers  and  sisters.  She 
was  puzzled. 

As  she  watched,  one  of  the  smallest  youngsters  poised 
on  the  edge  of  the  water  and  almost  fell  forward.  In  that 
instant  a  little  girl  flashed  from  a  near-by  summer  house 
and  pulled  the  baby  back  from  danger. 

The  child  whose  watchful  eye  and  quick  coordination  of 
mind  and  body  had  effected  this  tiny  rescue  seized  and  held 
Gracia  Theddon's  attention.  She  was  slender  and  dark, 
the  most  delicately  wrought  little  girl  that  had  ever  moved 
into  Mrs.  Theddon's  scheme  of  things.  Her  features  were 
cut  with  the  clearness  of  a  cameo.  She  had  strangely  calm 
eyes,  extraordinary  eyes,  even  for  a  child. 

The  woman  finally  summoned  a  youngster,  a  precocious 
youngster  of  few  illusions. 

"Who's  that  little  girl,  boy?"  she  asked.  "The  one  with 
the  pretty  face  and  long  black  curls." 

"Whatcher  wanner  knowfer?" 

Mrs.  Theddon  found  a  dime  in  the  tiny  bead  bag  at  her 
girdle. 

"Now  tell  me  the  little  girl's  name  and  what  you  know 
about  her." 

"Name's  Leggy  —  it's  short  for  sumpin'  —  Leeg  —  Leeg 
—  sumpin'  like  Leegar." 

"You  mean  Allegra?" 

"Uh-huh!" 

"And  what's  her  last  name?" 

"Ain't  got  none.  She  didn't  have  no  fadder  nor  mudder 
like  the  rest  of  us.  The  fairies  brought  her.  Leggy  says 
so!  Say,  there  ain't  no  fairies,  are  there?" 

"So  that's  why  you're  all  dressed  alike.    You're  orphans." 


THE  FAIRY  FOUNDLING  33 

Mrs.  Theddon's  eyes  went  back  to  the  little  girl.  "And 
who's  looking  out  for  you?" 

"Leggy  is.  We  couldn't  come  to  the  Park  at  all  if  it 
warn't  fer  her.  She's  a  cuckoo,  Leggy  is.  She  says  she 
saw  Santa  Claus  once.  Say,  there  ain't  no  Santa  Claus,  is 
there?" 

"I  used  to  think  so,  little  boy." 

"I  arst  Miss  Howlan'  once.  But  she  got  mad  and  tol' 
me  to  get  the  hell  out  and  stop  askin'  foolish  questions,  or 
she'd  slap  my  mouth " 

"Who's  Miss  Rowland?" 

"She  runs  the  dump  we  live  at.  She's  a  quince  and  can't 
get  married.  Say,  you're  rich,  aincher?  Is  that  a  real  bird 
on  your  hat?" 

"And  does  this  Miss  Rowland  swear  so  before  you  chil 
dren?" 

"Huh,  hell  ain't  swearin'.  I  know  lots  o'  words  worse'n 
hell.  So's  Miss  Rowland.  Gee,  you  oughta  hear  her  rip 
when  she  gets  mad.  She  says  goddam  an' " 

"Stop,  boy,  stop!  I  merely  wish  to  know  about  that 
little  girl.  What's  the  name  of  the  Orphanage  where  you 
live?" 

"The  Corpses  is  Christened  —  or  sumpin'  sounds  like  it." 

"You  mean  Corpus-Christi  ?" 

"Uh-huh!     Guess  so!" 

"And  how  long  has  that  little  girl  been  at  the  Corpus- 
Christi  Orphanage?" 

"Since  'fore  the  world  was  made,  I  guess  —  a  nawful  long 
time.  She  b'longs  to  Miss  Howlan'." 

"Belongs  to  her !" 

"Yeah!  Miss  Howlan's  fixed  it  so  Leggy  can't  be 
adopted.  When  people  come  and  wanner  kid,  trie  first  they 
allus  grab  is  Leggy.  So  Miss  Howlan's  hooked  her  up, 
and  Leggy'll  have  to  stay  to  the  place  and  be  a  orphan  till 
she's  old  and  got  grand-chillun.  Miss  Howlan'  said  she 
done  a  good  job  when  she  hooked  Leggy.  I  heard  her  tell 
Bridget ;  she  cooks  the  stuff  we  eat  and  then  eats  it  herself." 

"And  you're  sure  you  never  heard  the  little  girl's  last 
name?" 

"Say,  wasser  matter  wicher?  I  said  she  ain't  got  none, 
din't  I?  She  warn't  born  like  the  rest  of  us.  They  found 
her  sleepin'  on  a  haycock  in  a  field.  It  was  near  some  woods 


34  THE  FOG 

where  the  fairies  stole  out  and  left  her.  Say,  what's  a 
haycock  ?" 

"And  how  long  ago  was  it  they  found  her?" 

"Gee,  you're  thick,  aincher?  I  said  it  was  a  nawful  long 
time  back,  'fore  my  fadder  busted  my  mudder  open,  and 
then  skipped  so  he  wouldn't  have  to  go  to  jail,  and  they 
shoved  me  in  the  Corpses  is  Christened  dump  to  be  a 
orphan " 

The  boy's  worldly  wisdom  disturbed  Mrs.  Theddon  so 
painfully  that  she  finally  dismissed  him  in  relief. 

Then  she  called  the  Fairy  Foundling. 

The  child  approached  with  a  dainty  deference  that  won 
the  rich  woman  instantly  —  if  she  had  not  been  won  from 
the  first. 

This  was  no  laborer's  offspring. 

Mrs.  Theddon  was  almost  minded  to  believe  in  fairies 
after  all. 

n 

The  following  day  a  pair  of  handsome  grays  stopped 
before  the  Corpus-Christi  Orphanage.  Mrs.  Theddon 
alighted  from  her  carriage,  instructed  her  coachman  to 
wait  and  went  up  the  broken  steps  to  the  grim  front  door. 

The  Orphanage  was  a  mediocre  double  house  in  the 
poorer  quarter  of  the  city;  only  a  battered  sign  tacked  to 
the  greenish  clapboards  indicated  its  character.  Mrs.  Thed- 
don's  ring  was  answered  by  an  angular  female  who  believed 
in  infant  damnation,  the  prohibition  issue  and  the  curse 
of  the  idle  rich.  Her  hair  was  drawn  tightly  from  her 
square,  sallow  forehead,  her  shoulders  were  sharp,  her  face 
on  a  man  would  have  created  a  perfect  butler  for  the  lower 
class  motion  pictures. 

"I  am  Mrs.  Gracia  Theddon,"  announced  the  first,  "and 
I  have  called  to  see  you  about  a  certain  child  you  have  here  — 
a  little  Allegra  Something-or -other." 

"You  mean  you  want  to  adopt  her?" 

"If  it's  possible." 

"It  isn't  possible!    Allegra's  my  own." 

"So  I  understand.  But  I  want  little  Miss  Allegra  myself 
and  I'm  —  well  —  I'm  prepared  to  make  it  worth  while  to  be 
reasonable." 


THE  FAIRY  FOUNDLING  35 

Thereat  the  Rowland  person  thawed  somewhat,  —  not 
much. 

"Come  in,"  she  conceded. 

She  led  the  way  into  a  bare  cheerless  "office."  Mrs.  Thed- 
don  sat  down  and  raised  her  black  veil. 

"I  saw  the  child  in  the  Park  yesterday.  I  talked  with 
her.  And  when  I  got  home  last  night  —  in  bed  —  I  realized 
—  how  very  much  I  should  like  to  have  such  a  little  girl.  I 
have  no  children.  My  husband  was  killed  last  year  in  the 
Philippines." 

Miss  Howland,  it  developed,  was  a  "toe-tapper"  and  a 
Competent  Person.  Moreover,  she  had  dealt  with  finicky 
patronesses  of  the  Orphanage  for  years.  She  tapped  her 
toe  now,  though  her  face  maintained  its  wooden  expression. 

"So  I  understand,  Mrs.  Theddon.  But  you  see  —  I  also 
love  Allegra  —  she  is  such  a  help  to  me  about  the  place " 

"You  don't  make  that  delicate  little  girl  work!" 

"No,  no!  Not  work!  Merely  a  few  chores  to  give  her 
a  sense  of  responsibility  —  looking  after  the  younger  chil 
dren  and  all  that.  They  are  an  awful  care  at  times,  Mrs. 
Theddon  —  an  awful  care." 

Mrs.  Theddon  was  duly  solicitous.  She  knew  the  How- 
land  type  and  how  to  "handle"  it.  Ten  minutes  were  spent 
ingratiating  herself  into  the  superintendent's  sympathies 
and  the  Howland  woman  thawed. 

"But  what  do  you  know  about  the  child?"  Mrs.  Theddon 
asked. 

"They  found  her  in  a  hayfield  over  toward  Ludlow  ten 
years  ago  last  summer.  But  no  one  reported  a  lost  child. 
When  the  papers  advertised  her,  no  one  came  forward  to 
identify  or  claim  her.  So  they  brought  her  here." 

"And  you  don't  know  her  last  name?" 

"Nothing  about  her  whatever.  I  gave  her  the  name 
Allegra,  and  of  course  when  I  adopted  her,  she  got  my 
own " 

"Then  you  have  legally  adopted  her  ?" 

"Well,  all  the  red  tape  isn't  finished  yet.  I  just  say  I've 
adopted  her  when  people  come  here  for  babies  because  they 
always  pick  the  prettiest  first.  And  Leggy's  turned  out  so 
clever  I  could  better  afford  to  lose  some  of  the  older,  home 
lier  ones " 

Mrs.  Theddon  saw  the  psychological  moment  had  arrived. 


36  THE  FOG 

"Miss  Howland,"  she  announced  firmly,  "I  want  that 
child  badly.  But  I  don't  want  her  badly  enough  to  haggle 
over  her.  I'll  write  you  a  check  this  moment  for  a  thousand 
dollars  —  and  not  another  cent  more.  But  it's  on  the  un 
derstanding  that  all  the  legalities  are  settled  by  you  with  the 
trustees  and  the  girl  is  delivered  at  my  home  before  the 
coming  Saturday!" 

If  Mrs.  Theddon  had  drawn  a  revolver  and  shot  the 
Howland  person,  the  latter  could  not  have  sat  more  totally 
and  adequately  stunned. 

"A  —  thou  —  sand  —  dol  —  lars !" 

"Exactly.  A  thousand  dollars!"  Mrs.  Theddon's  pat 
ronage  had  gone.  She  had  the  crisp  poise  she  used  when 
bargaining  with  servants  or  tradesmen. 

It  took  several  moments  for  Miss  Howland  to  recover. 
A  hundred  dollars  would  have  been  a  great  persuader.  But 
a  thousand! 

Then  her  narrow,  crafty  nature  roused  from  the  mental 
stupor  which  the  offer  had  produced.  If  the  Theddon 
woman  would  pay  a  thousand  dollars,  she  must  want  the 
child  very  much  indeed.  Miss  Howland  flattered  herself 
she  knew  these  pampered,  petulant  women.  She  gave  facial 
indications  of  thrust-and-parry. 

"I  couldn't " 

"Very  well,"  announced  Mrs.  Theddon.  "I  withdraw 
my  offer  and  bid  you  good-day.  But  I  shall  use  my  influ 
ence  in  certain  quarters  to  secure  the  child  without  the  pay 
ment  of  a  cent.  I  made  you  a  fair  offer  to  avoid  legal 
procedure  and  undesirable  publicity.  But  now  I  withdraw 
it!" 

Mrs.  Theddon  lowered  her  veil  and  prepared  to  depart  — 
which  she  had  not  the  least  intention  of  doing. 

"Wait  a  moment !"  cried  Miss  Howland  weakly.  At  once 
she  abandoned  any  attempt  to  dicker.  It  was  too  risky. 
"I  was  about  to  say  I  couldn't  desire  anything  better  than 
to  think  of  little  Allegra  being  adopted  by  a  nice  lady  like 
yourself  — «-  " 

Mrs.  Theddon  produced  her  check  book. 


THE  FAIRY  FOUNDLING  37 


in 

A  little,  misery-eyed,  wood  thrush  of  a  girl  in  a  drab- 
blue  pinafore  crept  out  from  her  hiding  place  under  a  corner 
desk.  She  fled  across  the  "office",  up  the  back  stairs  and 
into  her  "room",  a  cot  under  an  alcove,  before  the  Rowland 
person  returned  from  the  gate  where  she  had  enviously 
watched  the  grays  drive  away. 

The  little  girl  had  overheard.  Parentless,  nameless,  she 
had  been  sold  by  one  person  and  bought  by  another,  —  for 
a  thousand  dollars! 

The  intuitive  horror  of  her  nonentity,  of  that  sale  and 
purchase,  never  left  the  little  girl,  —  not  even  twenty  years 
later  in  womanhood. 

She  crouched  —  a  tiny  mite  in  blue  gingham  —  on  the  cot 
and  failed  to  answer  Miss  Rowland  when  the  latter  went 
through  the  house,  calling  for  her  angrily. 


CHAPTER  V 

IMPRESSIONS 


Looking  back  on  those  days  in  Foxboro  Center  now, 
Nathan  and  I  think  of  them  as  Nuggets  of  Time  from  the 
Golden  Mine  of  Boyhood,  unalloyed.  I  would  like  to  tran 
scribe  whole  pages  from  the  Memory  Book,  all  of  which 
has  contributed  to  the  great  mass  of  experience  influencing 
the  most  vital  parts  of  our  lives.  Yet  the  subject  matter 
is  too  trivial  and  the  type  too  fine  to  ask  a  busy  world  to 
read. 

There  are  no  woods  now  like  those  Nathan  and  I  ex 
plored  in  those  days.  There  are  no  valleys  so  peaceful,  no 
afternoons  so  long,  no  twilights  so  soft,  no  stars  so  high. 

Thrushes  and  peewees  sang  in  the  leafy  silences  of  those 
woodlands.  Cloistered  glades  would  be  suddenly  desecrated 
by  the  shrill  screeches  of  jays.  Brooks  babbled  unexpect 
edly  across  marshy  pathways,  to  be  forded  on  mossy  stones. 
Jack-in-the-Pulpits  and  Lady's  Slippers  grew  among  the 
smooth  brown  needles  of  hemlock-roofed  hillsides.  Occa 
sionally,  when  lying  in  the  forest  quiet,  we  would  hear  the 
tread  of  a  lone  partridge  on  last  autumn's  brittle  leaves  as 
sharp  and  loud  as  the  tread  of  a  man. 

But  alas  and  alack!  Nathan's  little  sister  often  "tagged 
after  us,"  demanding  petulantly  to  be  helped  over  stone 
walls,  around  bramble  patches  and  across  ditches,  getting 
her  feet  wet  in  bogs  and  squealing  hideously  if  we  traveled 
too  fast  or  gave  the  slightest  indication  of  abandoning  her 
to  forest  terrors. 

There  is  only  one  thing  more  tragic  to  a  small  boy  than 
having  a  little  sister  to  bother  him.  That  is  having  an  elder 
sister  to  "boss"  him. 

There  were  rainy  days,  too,  when  we  explored  old  attics, 
playing  among  heirlooms  and  relics  that  to-day  would  be 


IMPRESSIONS  39 

worth  much  money.  There  were  days  when  we  invented 
weird  pastimes  in  the  fantastic  nooks,  crannies  and  haylofts 
of  two  fragrant  country  barns. 

Sometimes  in  the  spring,  when  the  winter  is  breaking  up 
and  the  soil  is  coming  through  in  patches,  sweet  and  wet, 
I  catch  a  breath  of  fragrance  from  those  Foxboro  play 
times.  I  smell  again  the  clear,  cool,  pungent  dampness  of 
woodland  ravines  where  we  poked  noisy  leaves  aside  to 
find  the  first  may  flowers.  The  odor  of  summer  pastures 
in  the  sunset  comes  to  me  and  the  sweet  scent  of  ripening 
huckleberries,  briarbloom  and  fern.  Autumn  brings  its  scents 
and  odors,  too  —  crimson  sumach  and  bursting  milkweed; 
the  acrid  sweetness  of  loaded  apple  trees  with  windfallen 
fruit  knobbing  the  ground  beneath;  old  goldenrod;  the 
sharp  nip  of  frost-bitten  air  blowing  fitfully  across  the  hills 
on  afternoons  when  the  earth  shivered  in  the  nakedness  of 
fall  and  the  sky  was  a  museum  of  cloud.  Then  winter 
came  with  gray  days  —  soft-muffled,  snow-heavy  —  moist 
mornings,  dripping  noons,  melancholy  twilights  when  even 
the  carmine  of  the  sinking  sun  was  freezing  cold ;  then  the 
piercing  stab  of  blue  crystal  nights  when  the  stars  were 
very  high  and  the  panes  of  windows  in  empty  rooms  were 
weirdly  padded  with  frost. 

Who  can  fathom  the  heart  of  a  boy?  I  recall  these  items 
especially  here,  because  there  were  times  when  I  would  find 
my  friend  indisposed  to  play.  Often  in  these  seasons  and 
settings,  he  would  stop  and  grow  strangely  silent.  "It's  so 
pretty,  Billy,  it  hurts,"  he  would  tell  me.  "It  makes  me  — 
afraid !" 

One  summer  evening  we  sat  on  the  Forge  front  steps 
under  the  stars.  The  crickets  were  cheeping  about  us. 
Now  and  then  we  saw  ghostly  petals  of  syringa  blossoms 
flutter  down  in  the  shadows  beneath,  the  world  voluptuous 
with  summer  scents  about  us. 

"I  feel  as  if  I'd  like  to  write  and  tell  somebody  all  about 
it,  Billy,"  he  said  to  me. 

"Tell  'em  what?" 

"How  it  hurts !" 

"How  what  hurts  ?" 

"Oh —  the  world  —  and  starry  nights  —  just  livin'  in  it 
all.  It's  holy  somehow  —  like  church." 

Faint  piano  music  floated  up  the  valley.    Somewhere  be- 


40  THE  FOG 

low  a  sweet  soprano  voice  was  singing  "The  Blue  and  the 
Gray." 

I  choose  to  think  of  that  night  as  the  first  time  the  poet- 
soul  of  my  friend  was  disclosed  to  me.  Yet  I  would  have 
pooh-poohed  poetry  —  then.  It  was  stagy  stuff  to  be  recited 
hectically  in  school  on  Friday  afternoons,  beginning,  "I  am 
dying,  Egypt,  dying!"  and  the  demise  complete  before  a 
dozen  lines  had  been  rendered. 

"Billy,  do  you  s'pose  all  men  when  they  was  boys  felt 
like  you  and  me?" 

"Aw,  I  guess  so." 

"Wish  I  knew  for  sure,  Billy." 

"What  for?" 

"I  dunno.    Maybe  it'd  make  things  easier  to  stand. 


II 

As  Nathan's  sister  Edith  grew  older,  her  petulancy  of 
mouth  became  more  pronounced.  Like  most  small  sisters 
her  recreational  specialty  was  ferreting  out  breaches  of  de 
portment  on  the  part  of  us  boys  and  carrying  dirty  little 
tales  to  our  parents.  Johnathan  and  his  wife  indirectly  en 
couraged  this  sort  of  thing.  They  thought  it  "cute." 

One  afternoon  Edith  broke  a  barn  window.  She  declared 
at  once  that  Nathan  did  it.  The  brother's  protestations  of 
innocence  availed  him  nothing.  He  was  punished  on  Edith's 
unconfirmed  say-so.  Thereupon  Edith  discovered  she  held 
a  power  over  Nathan.  She  could  blackmail  him  into  doing 
almost  anything  whim  dictated  by  committing  petty  damage 
herself  and  accusing  the  boy  as  the  miscreant. 

This  went  on  for  the  better  part  of  the  autumn.  Finally 
Edith  overdid  it.  One  evening  she  accused  Nathan  of  hav 
ing  let  the  horse  out  of  the  boxstall.  She  swore  she  saw 
him.  She  gave  a  convincing  and  vivid  account  as  an  eye 
witness.  Only  it  happened  Nathan  had  been  with  his  father 
down  in  the  village  all  the  afternoon,  unknown  to  Edith. 

Caught  in  a  bald-faced  lie,  Edith  snickered.  Then  she 
slapped  her  brother's  face  as  being  somehow  responsible. 

Edith  was  not  chastised  for  falsehood,  but  Nathan  got 
his  ears  boxed  soundly  for  "daring  to  lay  a  finger  on  his 
little  sister"  when  he  defended  himself. 


IMPRESSIONS  41 

In  fact,  Mrs.  Forge  thought  the  escape  of  the  horse  and 
Edith's  discomfiture  a  rather  good  joke.  If  there  was  wrong 
in  it,  Edith  would  "grow  out  of  it."  Of  course!  She  was 
a  girl ! 

That  night  Mrs.  Forge  read  Nathan  a  homily  on  chivalry. 
There  were  many  things  boys  could  not  do  without  punish 
ment  that  were  perfectly  permissible  for  little  girls. 


in 

Johnathan  Forge  "failed"  at  his  store  in  the  Center,  as 
he  appeared  to  fail  at  everything  everywhere.  He  became 
convinced  he  "could  do  better  in  a  larger  place."  Thus  came 
a  certain  day  when  Nathan  raced  up  to  my  house  bursting 
with,  excitement. 

"We're  going  to  move  to  Paris!  We're  going  to  move 
to  Paris!"  he  cried.  "Dad's  got  a  job  in  the  newspaper 
office  and  we're  going  as  soon's  we  can  pack  our  things." 

Going  to  Paris,  Vermont,  at  that  age,  was  like  going  to 
Paris,  France,  in  these  later  years.  It  was  not  something 
to  be  negotiated.  It  was  something  to  be  attained. 

The  day  the  family  left  town  I  hung  about  the  Forge 
house  all  the  forenoon,  divided  between  doing  the  work  of 
two  men  gratis,  or  getting  in  the  way  so  skillfully  that 
Johnathan  Forge  was  moved  to  profanity.  But  the  goods 
were  loaded  at  last  and  after  dinner  Nat  came  over  in  his 
"best  clothes"  to  bid  me  good-by. 

We  spoke  as  two  who  are  going  different  ways  into  far 
countries.  We  made  light  of  the  situation  and  the  play 
times  we  had  enjoyed  together,  though  God  knows  the  tears 
were  close  to  our  eyelids. 

"I  left  a  swell  pair  of  baby-carriage  wheels  up  in  the  wig 
wam  in  the  woods.  But  you  can  have  'em  for  a  peach  of  a 
cart,"  he  said  generously.  A  pair  of  "swell  baby-carriage 
wheels"  was  a  treasure  beyond  price  among  boys  in  those 
days.  Yet  I  was  thinking  with  an  awful  heart-pinch  that 
Nathan  and  I  would  never  play  in  that  wigwam  of  leaves 
and  brush  again. 

"I  suppose  you'll  always  stay  here  in  Foxboro,"  he  went 
on,  with  the  condescension  of  the  city  mouse  for  the  country 
cousin.  "But  if  you  ever  come  to  Paris,  I'll  expect  you  to 


42  THE  FOG 

visit  me.  Ill  probably  always  live  in  Paris.  It's  a  big  place. 
There's  more  advantages  and  op-op-opportunities." 

We  spoke  stiffly  and  indifferently  as  the  parting  grew 
nearer. 

"Well,  guess  I'll  have  to  be  going,"  he  said.    "Good-by." 

"Good-by,"  I  said.  "Maybe  some  day  when  we  grow  up 
we'll  meet  again." 

"Yes,  good-by." 

"Good-by." 

John  Forge  was  driving  his  family  over  the  road  in  a 
democrat  wagon.  I  came  to  the  gate  to  wave  to  them  as  they 
passed  down  the  road  and  around  the  turn.  Then  the  vehicle 
turned  the  corner  and  the  road  was  empty. 

The  road?  The  world  was  empty.  For  the  first  time  in 
my  life  I  knew  loneliness  —  horrible,  unbearable,  numbing 
loneliness  —  worse  than  the  loss  of  my  father ! 

My  mother  came  up  to  put  me  to  bed  that  night.  She 
understood  my  tight  silence.  I  was  trying  hard  to  keep  my 
nerve,  but  the  thought  of  coming  days,  weeks,  months, 
years  without  Nat  was  dawning  upon  me  in  all  its  hideous 
emptiness. 

That  night  I  was  very  glad  I  had  a  mother  and  that  she 
was  not  twitching-faced  and  pin-pointed  of  eye  like 
Nathan's. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ODD  STICK 


My  mother's  savings  were  exhausted  in  the  spring  of 
1900.  The  payments  on  her  pension  were  delayed.  The 
good  woman  was  almost  alone  in  the  world  with  a  seam- 
ripping,  button-bursting,  small  boy  who  demanded  to  be 
clothed,  fed,  educated.  Rather  than  submit  to  the  slavery 
of  keeping  house  for  some  widowed  farmer,  she  decided  to 
move  to  Paris  also  and  try  to  find  work  in  a  store. 

Thus  I  ultimately  rejoined  Nathan. 

He  did  not  greet  me  as  effusively  as  I  had  expected.  His 
indifference  hurt.  But  I  soon  made  allowance.  Nathan 
was  in  love.  The  object  of  his  affections  was  Bernie  Grid- 
ley. 

"Come  over  to  my  house  and  tell  me  all  about  her,"  I 
invited  that  first  noontime. 

"After  school?    I  can't.    I  work." 

"You  work!    Where?" 

"I  peddle  papers  every  night — Telegraphs" 

"You  mean  you  make  real  money?     Gee,  that's  swell." 

Nat  shut  his  lips. 

"Aw,  I  don't  get  nothin'.  Pa  makes  me  do  it.  He  takes 
it  and  uses  it  to  help  out  at  home." 

"But  you  do  the  work  and  so  the  money  belongs  to 
you !" 

"Yeah!  But  pa  figgers  he's  supportin'  me  and  he  had 
to  work  when  he  was  a  boy  —  and  turn  over  the  money  to 
his  father.  So  he  makes  me  do  the  same." 

"I'd  like  to  see  wryself " 

"Aw,  you're  talkin'  through  your  hat!  Whatter  you 
know  about  havin'  a  father?  Your  father  died!  Hang  it 
all,  some  guys  have  all  the  luck!" 


44  THE  FOG 


ii 

Nathan  was  "goin*  on  fourteen"  now.  He  had  grown 
older,  somehow,  older  than  the  twenty  months  which  had 
intervened  since  I  had  last  seen  him  warranted. 

These  three  —  Nathan,  the  Dresden  Doll  and  a  shocky- 
headed  young  troglodyte  who  had  just  arrived  from  the 
wilds  of  Foxboro  Center  —  were  seated  near  one  another 
during  that  year  in  the  seventh  grade  of  the  old  Academy 
on  the  hill. 

The  American  public  school  being  the  great  common  de 
nominator  for  juvenile  humanity,  it  had  developed  after 
several  months'  scholastic  propinquity  between  Nathan  and 
Bernie  that  he  was  not  quite  so  impossible  as  the  Dresden 
Doll  had  at  first  assumed.  And  Bernie's  teachers  had 
rather  caustic  ideas  about  the  Gridley  ' 'blood."  The  Dresden 
Doll  became  a  little  more  human. 

"What  are  you  going  to  give  me  for  my  birthday,  boy?" 
she  demanded  of  Nathan  one  day,  accosting  him  on  the  edge 
of  the  school  yard.  "I'm  going  to  have  a  party,  you  know. 
Everybody's  coming  and  must  bring  me  something." 

The  abruptness  of  meeting  and  question  left  Nathan 
speechless.  With  his  temperament  and  home  training  —  or 
lack  of  it  —  it  was  only  natural  he  should  have  been  awk 
ward  in  her  presence. 

But  he  finally  rallied. 

"Well,  I'll  try  to  give  you  something  bigger  'n  better  than 
you'll  get  from  anybody  else.  You  can  bet  on  that!" 

His  declaration  implied  a  promise.  Moreover,  after  the 
nature  of  such  youthful  indiscretions,  it  grew  plain  he 
would  have  to  make  that  promise  good  or  be  forever  dis 
credited  and  go  through  the  rest  of  life  a  celibant. 

What  could  he  give  her  that  would  be  greater  and  finer 
and  better  than  any  other  person  —  chiefly  boy  —  might 
offer?  It  became  an  awful  quandary.  Though  only  "goin' 
on  fourteen",  it  came  to  him  he  had  thrust  a  foot  into  one 
of  life's  traps.  In  his  little  cot-bed  up  under  the  eaves  of  the 
cottage  John  Forge  had  taken  for  his  family  in  Spring 
Street,  he  pondered  feverishly  far  into  each  night.  And 
with  sickening  speed  the  date  of  the  affair  approached  and 
found  him  still  debating. 


THE  ODD  STICK  45 

The  underlying  cause  of  his  predicament  was  financial. 
He  hadn't  a  cent,  was  never  allowed  money  and  would  have 
to  steal  and  lie  to  get  any.  If  he  had  millions  he  could  of 
course  present  her  with  a  diamond  ring  or  a  Maltese  cat 
or  something  like  that.  But  not  a  cent!  It  was  humiliat 
ing. 

The  solution  finally  came  via  the  unwitting  agency  of 
the  Duchess.  She  called  on  Mrs.  Forge  to  purchase  some 
geranium  slips  and  remained  to  discuss  the  precocity  of 
Bernice-Theresa. 

"I  am  convinced  she  will  be  literary,"  the  Duchess  de 
clared.  "She  has  already  finished  the  Bible,  'Pilgrim's 
Progress'  and  'Rollo's  Travels  in  Switzerland.'  I  think  I 
shall  start  her  next  on  the  poets." 

Nathan's  mother  asked  which  poets.  And  the  Duchess 
answered:  "I  understand  'Dauntless  Inferno'  by  John  Mil 
ton  is  being  read  these  days  by  all  the  best  people.  After 
that  I  shall  try  Shakespeare.  He's  so  romantic!" 

Nathan  lay  in  bed  that  night,  turning  this  sudden  literary 
proclivity  of  the  Gridley  girl  over  in  his  mind.  Then,  by 
the  strange  and  wonderful  convolutions  of  a  boy's  brain,  he 
had  it!  He  could  scarcely  wait  until  morning  to  get  to 
Weathersbee  &  Hawkins'  Second-hand  Furniture  Store. 
There,  after  much  mysterious  maneuvering,  he  contracted 
for  the  article  he  sought,  agreeing  to  saw  wood  for  Mr. 
Hawkins  Saturdays  to  pay  for  it.  He  carried  it  home  the 
night  before  the  memorable  birthday  party  and  hid  it  in  the 
loft  of  the  Forge  woodshed. 

The  affair  began  at  two-thirty  the  next  day.  Twenty- 
seven  boys  and  girls,  painfully  starched  and  ironed,  gathered 
awkwardly  upon  the  Gridley  lawn.  A  table  had  been  placed 
beside  the  veranda  steps  and  upon  it  the  birthday  gifts  were 
deposited.  Article  by  article  the  pile  grew,  some  of  them 
pathetically  inexpensive,  a  few  indicating  want  of  taste  far 
more  than  worldly  goods. 

When  the  Forge  boy  looked  upon  the  daintiness  and  deli 
cacy  of  most  of  the  gifts,  an  awful  qualm  smote  him.  He 
wondered  if  he  might  not  have  overdone  the  present  busi 
ness  in  his  anxiety  to  make  an  impression?  But  Bernice 
was  demanding  impatiently  to  know  how  he  had  fulfilled 
his  promise.  There  was  no  time  to  reconsider  now  —  cer 
tainly  not  to  go  back  and  buy  another  present.  He  went  to 


46  THE  FOG 

a  secret  place  in  the  hedge  and  brought  his  gift  from  its 
hiding. 

Across  the  lawn  he  carried  it  with  difficulty,  for  it  was 
nearly  as  large  as  himself.  To  the  gift-altar  he  brought  it, 
small  heart  palpitating  painfully. 

"My  goodness!"  exclaimed  the  little  patrician.  "What 
ever  can  it  be  ?" 

The  children,  patronized  by  a  few  mothers,  gathered 
around  to  learn  what  the  Forge  boy  had  brought  his  dainty 
little  hostess  which  should  leave  all  present  speechless  by  its 
cleverness  and  elegance.  Nathan,  badly  scared,  unwound 
copious  quantities  of  newspaper  and  cast  them  aside.  Then, 
using  all  his  thirteen-year  strength,  up  onto  the  table  amid 
the  lesser  gifts,  its  weight  causing  that  table  to  rock  rather 
groggily  for  a  moment,  Nathan  added  —  a  life-sized  bust  of 
Julius  Caesar.  Caesar.  In  chalk ! 

The  Duchess  raised  her  lorgnette.  She  and  Caesar  ex 
changed .  mutual  glances  of  stupefaction  for  an  instant. 

"But  who  is  it?"  she  demanded. 

"It  must  be  a  new  kind  of  a  big  doll !"  exclaimed  a  little 
girl  with  violent  pigtails. 

"Why  —  why  —  it's  a  —  it's  a "  Nathan  wanted  all 

present  to  understand  that  it  was  sculpture  of  most  poetic 
motif  having  to  do  with  the  literary  ramifications  of  one 
W.  Shakespeare.  But  he  could  not  recall  the  words  "sculp 
ture",  "statue"  or  "bust." 

"It's  a  monument !"  he  choked.  "For  Julius  Caesar  —  I 
mean  of  Julius  Caesar.  He  divided  Gaul  into  three  parts 
and  they  stabbed  him !" 

"A  monument!"  cried  the  Duchess.  "Stabbed  him!  And 
do  you  think  he's  buried  hereabouts,  that  Bernice-Theresa 
should  be  edified  with  his  tombstone  for  a  plaything?" 

"You  told  Ma  that  Bernie  was  goin'  to  read  the  best 
poets.  I  thought  o'  this  mon-mon-monument  I  s-s-seen  in 
Weatherbee's  store.  He's  got  an  ear  gone  and  his  nose  is 
bunged  and  maybe  he  needs  washin'.  But  as  far's  the 
missin'  ear  goes,  you  could  stand  it  in  a  corner  somewheres 
so's  his  head  would  be  against  the  wall " 

"My  God!"  choked  the  Duchess.  "William!  William! 
Where's  William?" 

William  Chew,  the  elderly  person  of  color,  came  forward. 

"William,"  cried  the  Duchess,   "remove  this  nightmare. 


THE  ODD  STICK  47 

God  love  us!  It  looks  as  if  this  unspeakable  boy  had 
brought  Bernice-Theresa  the  upper  half  of  somebody's 
whitewashed  corpse!" 

"Yes,  ma'am!"  assented  William.  "What  yo'  want  ah 
should  do  with  it,  ma'am?" 

"Do  with  it?"  gasped  the  Duchess.  "Take  it  home  to 
your  family !  Set  it  up  on  your  front  lawn !  Hand  it  down 
to  your  children!  Only  get  the  hideous  thing  off  these 
premises  and  never  bring  it  back!" 

William  obediently  toted  off  the  bust.  Then  the  Duchess 
looked  about  for  the  giver  of  this  good  and  perfect  gift. 
But  Nathan  had  reached  the  gate  and  was  fleeing  down  the 
walk.  For  him  there  was  no  party. 

William  took  the  "monument"  home.  The  last  seen  of  it 
was  atop  a  post  in  the  center  of  the  Chew  cornfield.  The 
colored  man  had  draped  a  coat  around  the  classic  bust,  hung 
trousers  beneath  it,  put  an  old  straw  hat  on  the  brow  that 
produced  the  Commentaries,  and  relegated  it  to  the  job  of 
scaring  off  the  crows.  Its  end  came  when  old  Webster 
Nelson  wandered  into  the  field  one  night  under  the  influence 
of  liquor,  beheld  the  chalky  features  beneath  the  hat,  and 
reduced  it  to  fragments  under  the  crazed  obsession  that  he 
was  being  confronted  by  the  supernatural. 


in 

A  little  girl  makes  love  to  a  boy  in  school  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  allowing  him  to  discover  her  eyes  upon  him 
steadily  when  he  raises  his  head  from  his  studies  and  looks 
in  her  direction.  Nathan  dragged  himself  to  school  next 
day.  But  the  topaz  eyes  of  Bernice-Theresa  were  not  upon 
him,  —  once!  Thereupon  did  life  become  a  delusion  and  a 
snare  and  sorrow  sit  heavily  upon  him. 

The  Dresden  Doll  came  out  of  the  Academy  at  four 
o'clock  and  started  homeward.  By  some  mysterious  levita- 
tion,  she  had  not  progressed  three  blocks  before  the  street 
held  a  party  of  the  opposite  sex  employed  in  touching  every 
other  picket  in  the  fence,  withal  moving  in  her  own  direction. 

"Say!"  this  person  demanded  plaintively,  having  somehow 
crossed  the  thoroughfare  by  the  time  she  reached  the  Baptist 
Church.  "Are  you  mad  at  me,  Bernie?" 


48  THE  FOG 

"Of  course  I'm  mad!  Why  shouldn't  I  be  mad?  You 
tried  to  spoil  my  party." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  spoil  your  party." 

"Perhaps  you  didn't.    But  you're  such  a  fool  at  times!" 

"A  fool!" 

"Why  do  you  do  such  perfectly  silly  things?" 

"I  —  I  —  only  tried  to  give  you  somethin'  different, 
Bernie.  I  —  only  —  tried  —  to  make  you  like  me." 

"Then  you  don't  know  much  about  girls !  For  instance  — 
your  clothes !  Why,  you  came  to  my  party  looking  like  a  — 
a  —  tramp !" 

"They  were  my  best  clothes,  Bernie  —  the  best  I  got." 

"Then  why  on  earth  doesn't  your  father  buy  you  some 
new?" 

"He  says  it's  puttin'  on  style  —  and  foolish." 

"But  you  look  so !    Can't  he  see  it  ?" 

"I  guess,  Bernie,  he  don't  much  care  —  or  understand." 

"Then  I'd  work  —  and  buy  my  own." 

"I  do  work.     But  he  makes  me  give  him  all  I  earn." 

"Then  I'd  run  away  —  or  shoot  him !" 

She  tossed  her  long  mass  of  straw-colored  curls  haughtily 
and  walked  from  sight. 

John  Forge  had  not  been  able  to  hold  his  job  in  the 
newspaper  office.  He  "didn't  get  along  with  people."  He 
had  opened  a  small  shop  on  Main  Street  and  gone  back  to 
cobbling  shoes.  Next  day  Ben  Williams,  the  clothier,  looked 
in  at  the  Forge  door  and  with  half  a  laugh  demanded : 

"Can't  you  dress  that  young  one  of  yours  so  he  won't  go 
around  makin'  a  nuisance  of  himself,  John  Forge?  He  was 
in  my  place  this  noon  with  a  crazy  plea  for  me  to  save  all 
my  bundles  for  Saturdays  so  he  could  deliver  'em  and  earn 
himself  a  suit  to  look  respectable." 

John  Forge  went  home  with  his  weak  jaw  set  grimly. 

"I'll  break  that  boy's  foolish  pride  —  or  I'll  break  his 
back !"  he  promised  himself  dourly. 


IV 

Nathan  lay  back  in  the  hammock  in  the  summer-evening 
depths  of  the  front  piazza  and  dreamed  dreams  with  his 
eyes  open.  Down  the  street  old  man  Bailey's  phonograph 


THE  ODD  STICK  49 

was  grinding  out  a  squeaky  program  of  popular  ballads. 
The  moths  were  clustering  around  the  sputtering  arc 
lamps.  On  the  near-by  corner  the  Allen  girl  was  shame 
lessly  "flirting  with  a  feller"  who  sat  on  his  bicycle  alongside 
the  curb,  one  foot  upon  it  to  steady  himself.  Occasionally 
the  girl  tested  the  bell  on  the  handle  bars,  and  it  ding-donged 
a  high  and  low  musical  note  interspersed  with  low  laughter. 
The  flirtation  hurt  Nathan.  He  was  jealous  of  the  older 
fellow's  freedom  from  "careful"  parents. 

"On'y  seven  years  more  —  just  seven  years !  —  then  I  can 
marry  her,"  the  poor  young  colt  told  himself.  "Marry  her 
whether  Pa'll  let  me  or  not.  Oh,  Bernie,  Bernie,  I  love 
you.  I  love  you  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world! 
You'll  never  understand!" 

It  was  only  half -past  seven  o'clock  and  yet  his  father 
appeared  and  ordered  him  in  to  bed. 

"Look  here,  you  young  pup,"  the  man  intercepted  as  Nat 
drearily  obeyed,  "  —  what's  this  nonsense  I'm  hearing  about 
you  traipsin'  around  behind  some  girl?  Do  you?" 

"N-N-No,  sir!" 

"I  don't  believe  you !  —  Else  folks  around  town  wouldn't 
be  talking.  If  you  lie  to  me  I'll  lay  on  the  strap.  Now  who 
is  the  girl  and  what  about  her  ?  Answer  me  quick,  or  it'll  be 
worse  for  you!" 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean!" 

A  shrill  cry  of  pain  followed  as  the  man  twisted  the  boy's 
ear. 

"Answer  me!"  he  thundered. 

"B-B-Bernice  Gridley,"  Nat  confessed. 

"Well  —  you  let  me  lay  down  a  law  right  here  and  now ! 
No  son  of  mine  is  going  to  make  a  young  jackass  of  him 
self  —  or  ruin  his  life  —  by  getting  mixed  up  with  any  girl 
before  he's  old  enough  to  know  his  own  mind!  You  put 
girls  out  of  your  mind  once  and  for  all,  the  same  as  when 
we  lived  over  in  Foxboro  you  were  told  to  put  the  baby 
business  out  of  your  mind !  You  hear  me  ?  Don't  you 
ever  be  seen  on  the  street  with  a  girl.  Don't  you  ever  speak 
to  one  excepting  when  you're  absolutely  obliged  to  —  on 
strictly  business!  Don't  you  ever  let  me  hear  of  you  goin' 
to  any  party  where  there's  girls  —  while  as  for  loving  or 
kissing  'em  —  my  God,  I'll  skin  you  alive  if  I  find  you  up 
to  any  such  looseness  and  wickedness.  You  promise  that 


5c  THE  FOG 

here  and  now  —  before  me  and  before  God  —  and  may  God 
damn  your  disobedient  young  soul  if  you  go  back  on  your 
promise." 

Nathan  was  aghast.  Johnathan  tortured  the  boy  until  he 
got  his  promise  out. 

This  was  a  Thursday  evening.  The  church  bells  were 
droning  idly  in  the  soft  summer  dusk.  Having  heard  young 
Nathan  climb  sobbing  into  his  creaking  bed  (while  other 
boys  were  still  playing  "Duck  on  the  Rock"  out  under  the 
Adams  Street  arc  light)  Johnathan  Forge  went  to  prayer 
meeting.  There  he  made  his  ten-minute  weekly  testimony 
about  how  precious  Jesus  had  been  to  his  soul  since  the 
previous  Thursday  and  how  he  —  Johnathan  —  prayed  in  all 
things  to  be  guided  by  the  Father's  loving  care. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EXQUISITE  THINGS 


Mrs.  Gracia  Theddon,  writing  in  her  upstairs  library  the 
Saturday  morning  after  her  visit  to  the  Orphanage,  was 
disturbed  by  one  Murfins,  her  butler.  Murfins  merely 
thrust  in  his  head,  being  florid  and  coatless  from  directing 
the  cleaning  of  near-by  rooms. 

"The  small  girl  you  spoke  of  Tuesday  is  here,  ma'am," 
was  his  simple  way  of  announcing  news  to  transcend  all 
future  events  in  Gracia  Theddon's  life. 

The  woman  arose,  gripping  her  chair-back  with  one  hand, 
the  other  quieting  her  heart. 

"Bring  her  up,  Murfins,"  she  directed  huskily. 

It  was  a  new  role  for  Mrs.  Theddon,  that  of  mother. 
Capable  of  directing  as  brilliant  a  social  galaxy  as  the  annual 
Charity  Ball,  she  waited  unnerved  for  the  advent  of  a  tiny, 
dark-eyed  stranger. 

Three  minutes  later  the  foster  mother  beheld  her  new 
child  come  down  the  room. 

The  Fairy  Foundling  had  removed  her  twenty-cent  hat 
of  brown  straw  and  shaken  free  her  dusky,  ribbonless 
tresses.  She  wore  a  drab  Orphanage  frock  which  only 
reached  her  knees,  her  stockings  were  thick  and  shapeless 
and  her  shoes  had  emphatically  been  selected  for  service  and 
not  for  style.  Yet  the  child  in  either  sackcloth  or  satin 
would  have  divulged  equal  quality.  There  was  no  cheap 
sniggering  bashfulness,  no  clodhopper  shyness  in  her  de 
meanor.  But  there  was  reserve  and  painful  anxiety  not 
unmixed  with  a  little  dread.  Her  cameo  features  were 
pale.  Her  delicate  rosebud  lips  disclosed  teeth  like  chips  of 
porcelain.  Her  deep  brown  eyes  —  almost  black  —  held  that 
same  queer  calmness,  but  those  eyes  could  easily  turn  starry, 
as  Mrs.  Theddon  discovered  in  the  next  few  moments. 


52  THE  FOG 

"Makes  me  think  she's  always  on  the  point  of  wanting 
to  weep  with  happiness,  yet  smilin'  through  tears  that  don't 
quite  come,"  was  old  Murfins'  way  of  describing  those 
eyes  to  Stebbins,  the  second  man.  To  which  sentiments 
Stebbins  subscribed  avidly,  —  though  with  picturesque  vari 
ations. 

Six  feet  from  Mrs.  Theddon  the  little  girl  halted. 

"So  you've  come,"  was  all  that  perturbed  woman  could 
call  up  at  the  moment.  She  meant  it  kindly  yet  she  realized 
it  was  the  wrong  thing  —  not  at  all  cordial  and  maternal. 
And  she  greatly  longed  to  be  cordial  and  maternal  and  set 
riotously  free  the  tenderness  aching  in  her  soul  for  expres 
sion. 

"Yes'm,"  returned  the  Fairy  Foundling,  with  a  tight 
swallow,  "  —  I've  come." 

"And  you'd  like  to  be  my  little  girl?" 

"I'd  like  to  be  anybody's  little  girl  that"  (swallow) 
"wanted  me." 

Mrs.  Theddon  sank  sideways  upon  her  chair.  She  could 
feel  every  throb  of  her  heart,  count  its  ragged  beatings. 

Suddenly,  as  the  wistful  figure  stood  there,  never  so  par- 
entless,  her  frailness  and  smallness  accentuated  by  the  great 
room  above  her,  the  rich  woman  held  out  her  arms. 

"Baby !"  she  cried  brokenly.    "Come !" 

Murfins  went  back  to  his  cleaning. 

"Well,  I'll  be  damned !"  he  cried.  "Didn't  know  the  old 
girl  had  it  in  her.  Just  goes  to  prove  that  folks  don't  al 
ways  match  their  outsides!  Yes,  I'll  be  damned!  I'll  be 
damned  a  couple  of  times  —  maybe  three !" 

"Do  you  know  how  long  I've  wanted  a  little  girl  and 
never  knew  what  it  was  I  wanted?"  Mrs.  Theddon  asked 
when  her  emotions  permitted. 

"No,  ma'am,"  the  princess  answered. 

"It's  been  a  long,  long  time !  God  never  sent  me  a  little 
girl  of  my  own  —  excepting  my  Dream  Girl,  dear." 

"Your  Dream  Girl?" 

"Sometimes  in  dark  nights  I  dreamed  a  little  girl  —  some 
body  very  like  yourself,  came  to  me  —  and " 

"Please  don't  cry,  Mrs.  Theddon!" 

"We're  going  to  be  so  happy,  you  and  I !  You  must  for 
get  the  Orphanage  or  that  you  ever  knew  it.  You  must  try 
to  believe  you've  lived  with  me  always.  You're  going  to 


EXQUISITE  THINGS  53 

have  pretty  dresses  and  a  beautiful  room.  You're  going  to 
have  all  sorts  of  nice  people  to  teach  you  and  help  you. 
And  good  times !  —  we're  going  to  have  all  sorts  of  parties 
and  walks  and  travels  together,  you  and  I  —  and  then  some 
day  —  all  I  own  will  be  yours  —  because  you're  all  I'll  have, 
all  —  I  —  have  —  now !" 

"That  will  be  awfully  fine,"  the  little  girl  replied  joyously. 

Most  children  would  have  been  abashed  or  thoughtlessly 
ecstatic.  The  Fairy  Foundling  was  not  unappreciative,  yet 
a  fine  reserve  seemed  bred  in  her  blood  and  fiber.  This 
environment  of  culture  and  refinement,  instead  of  distress 
ing  her,  placed  her  vaguely  at  ease. 

"And  please,  dear  —  please  don't  call  me  'Mrs.  Theddon/ 
I'm  Mrs.  Theddon  to  every  one  but  you.  You  are  to  be 
different  from  the  rest.  Call  me  —  if  you  can  —  call  me 
mother !  Would  you  call  me  mother,  little  girl  ?" 

"I'd  love  to  call  you  mother!" 

The  child  smiled  up  sweetly  into  the  woman's  aching  eyes. 
And  something  caught  in  Mrs.  Theddon's  throat.  Only  for 
an  instant.  Then  another  great  wave  of  maternity  swept 
through  her  tightened  breast  and  long-repressed  motherhood 
welled  up  gloriously,  —  fine  and  overwhelming  and  golden 
and  true. 

ii 

Mrs.  Theddon  led  the  child  down  the  outer  hallway  into 
a  small  room  which  opened  from  her  own.  White  and  blue 
was  the  color  scheme  in  an  atmosphere  of  silken  daintiness. 
Two  windows  opened  upon  a  wide  panorama  of  the  Con 
necticut  Valley  and  the  river,  far-flung  from  north  to  south 
below. 

Little  frocks  were  laid  upon  the  counterpane.  The  dress 
ing  table  was  as  complete  as  the  boudoir  appointments  of 
feminine  royalty.  Beyond  the  chamber  opened  a  diminutive, 
white-tiled  bath. 

"The  workmen  finished  it  yesterday  afternoon,  dear.  I 
made  them  rush  to  complete  it  in  time  for  you  to-day.  Now 
I'm  going  to  bathe  and  dress  you  —  myself.  I  want  to  do  it! 
Marie,  your  maid,  will  not  arrive  until  Monday.  But  that 
was  arranged  on  purpose.  For  the  first  two  days  —  I  wanted 
• —  to  accustom  you  to  it,  myself.  I  want  us  to  get  acquainted. 


54  THE  FOG 

You  don't  mind,  do  you,  dear?"  She  asked  it  anxiously, 
as  though  the  child  were  a  guest  as  old  as  herself. 

"Oh,  mother  —  dear  —  I'm  —  so  happy !  It's  a  dream 
come  true." 

"A  dream  come  true  ?"  Mrs.  Theddon  repeated  the  words 
dazedly.  "And  have  you  ever  dreamed  of  things  like  these, 
little  girl  ?" 

"Lots  and  lots  of  times.  Somehow  the  Orphanage  seemed 
a  place  where  I  was  staying  for  just  a  little  while  —  until 
somebody  I  belonged  to  came  after  me." 

"I'm  so  glad  you're  not  —  like  —  the  other  Orphanage 
children,  dear.  I  thought  in  some  ways  you  might  be.  But 
—  you  don't  know  —  how  pleased  —  I  am !" 

"I'm  just  me,"  the  princess  affirmed.  "And  it  seems 
like  —  coming  home !" 

The  mother  bathed  and  dressed  the  child,  calling  a  servant 
to  carry  away  the  Orphanage  clothes.  But  if  Mrs.  Theddon 
had  been  pleasantly  surprised  thus  far,  it  was  nothing  to 
her  overpowering  satisfaction  when  she  beheld  her  little 
ward  clothed  in  the  habilaments  better  befitting  her  char 
acter. 

"You're  wonderful,  girlie  mine!"  the  woman  whispered, 
as  she  surveyed  the  transformation. 

"And  I  think  you're  wonderful,  too,"  the  child  answered. 

And  yet,  twenty- four  hours  later,  a  gray  Sunday  twilight, 
Mrs.  Theddon  entered  her  chamber  to  discover  the  child 
huddled  in  a  window-chair,  sobbing  convulsively. 

"What's  the  matter,  darling?"  cried  the  shocked  woman. 
"Aren't  you  happy?" 

The  princess  sought  frantically  to  hide  her  tears. 

"Yes'm  —  I'm  happy — so  happy  it  hurts.  Yet  —  well,  I 
guess  I  miss  the  orphans  already!" 

"Miss  them !  You  mean  you'd  rather  be  at  the  Orphanage 
than  here  with  me?" 

"It  isn't  the  nice  things  —  it  isn't  you  —  it's  —  it's " 

"Yes,  yes!    What  is  it?" 

"I  guess  it's  just  the  orphans — 'specially  the  babies.  1 
miss  havin'  to  do  things  for  'em.  For  they  needed  an  awful 
lot  done  for  'em,  and  —  I  was  happy  because  it  was  me  that 
could  do  it." 

"But  they  have  some  one  else  to  look  after  them  now. 
They're  no  worse  off  because  you've  gone." 


EXQUISITE  THINGS  55 

"No'm.  Perhaps  not.  I  wasn't  'specially  thinking  of 
their  side  of  it.  I  was  thinking  of  mine.  They  liked  to 
have  things  done  for  'em.  They  told  me  so.  Miss  Rowland 
got  awful  cross  sometimes.  And  I  felt  happy  because  I 
was  'predated.  That's  an  awful  nice  word,  'predated,  isn't 
it?  I  so  want  folks  to  'predate  me,  Mrs.  Thed  —  mother 
dear.  I  guess  everybody  does,  don't  they  ?  —  want  to  be 
'predated  ?" 

Every  one  wants  to  be  appreciated  ?    Dear  God  in  heaven ! 

"Child,  what  does  put  such  mature  thoughts  into  your 
little  head?" 

"If  you'd  wondered  and  wondered  who  you  were,  and 
never  found  out,  maybe  you'd  know  how  sad  you  could 
feel,  thinking  it  was  because  nobody  wanted  you  and  you 
wasn't  'predated." 

"You  poor,  maternal,  romantic  little  lamb !  You  talk  like 
a  woman  grown,  already." 

"Do  grown-up  ladies  feel  like  that,  Mrs.  Thed  —  mother 
dear?" 

Mrs.  Theddon  did  not  answer  at  once.  Her  voice  was 
handicapped  when  she  responded: 

"Real  women  do,  I  fancy,  my  darling.  But  maybe  there 
are  a  lot  who  have  a  cruel  time  showing  it.  Come,  baby! 
Tell  me  —  did  any  one  ever  pick  you  up  and  rock  you  to 
sleep  in  their  arms?  Did  any  one  ever  try  to  sing  you  a 
lullaby,  child?" 

"Not  much,  Mrs.  Thed  —  mother.  I  always  tried  to  do  it 
to  those  littler  than  me.  But  I  loved  to  do  it !"  the  princess 
cried  suddenly. 

"Let's  sit  down  in  the  rocker,  child.  And  don't  weep 
any  more.  Because  you'll  never  know  how  much  you  are 
appreciated  here." 

The  woman  took  the  distraught,  moist-eyed  little  girl  in 
her  arms.  She  tried  to  soothe  her  by  singing  a  lullaby.  She 
had  a  rich  contralto  voice,  "trained"  by  a  great  Parisian 
master  —  for  this !  —  to  sing  a  little,  parentless  girl  to  sleep. 
Yet  she  had  to  stop  half  way.  She  found  that  her  training 
had  gone  for  naught.  Her  voice  was  cracked  and  jagged 
and  uneven  and  broken. 

In  that  mellow  pause,  the  child  snuggled  closer.  She 
whispered  in  the  dusk: 

"You're  just  like  a  real  mother,  Mrs.  Theddon.    I  guess 


56  THE  FOG 

I  know  now  why  some  of  the  babies  at  the  Home  stopped 
crying  when  I  began  to  rock  them  to  sleep." 

The  future  opened  radiantly  for  Mrs.  Gracia  Theddon 
then.  And  the  past  dropped  away,  colorless  and  shallow 
and  tinseled  and  wasted. 

"Listen,  dear,"  she  said  finally.  "I'm  going  to  ask  if 
you'll  do  something  for  me." 

"I'll  do  anything  in  the  world  for  you  —  that  I  can." 

"When  Miss  Howland  took  you  into  the  Home,  she  called 
you  Allegra.  When  she  partly  adopted  you,  she  gave  you 
her  own  name  —  Howland.  So  while  you  were  at  the  Or 
phanage  your  name  was  Allegra  Howland.  But  now  that 
you've  left  that  life  behind  you,  your  last  name  is  Theddon, 
like  my  own." 

"Yes'm." 

"I  don't  like  the  name  Allegra.  I  want  you  to  let  me 
change  that  too.  I've  picked  out  a  name  I'd  planned  to  call 
a  little  girl  of  my  own,  if  one  ever  came." 

"What  is  it,  mother  dear?  I'm  sure  I'll  like  it  if  you 
picked  it  out." 

"It's  — Madelaine!" 

"It's  an  awful  pretty  name,"  said  the  child,  after  a  mo 
ment's  silence.  "It's  so  soft-sounding  and  pleasant,  like  all 
the  rooms  here  in  your  house  —  and  your  eyes  and  your 
voice  —  since  I've  been  here  and  you  started  to  love  me." 

"God  help  me!"  whispered  the  rich  woman.  "Maybe 
You  knew  best,  dear  God.  It's  worth  the  dreary  wait,  after 
all!" 

And  so  Madelaine  Theddon  came  into  existence.  So  she 
too  started  her  journey  —  a  daintier,  softer  journey  —  to 
ward  Life's  Hilltop  and  the  lambent  stars  and  the  Amethyst 
Moment. 

in 

In  the  butler's  pantry  old  Murfins  was  straightening  out 
the  tradesmen's  orders  for  a  dinner  party.  Stebbins,  near 
by,  was  polishing  liqueur  glasses  with  a  flannel  cloth. 

"But  I'm  thinking  there's  going  to  be  family  fireworks, 
Steb,  when  the  Ruggleses  come  home  and  hear  what  she's 
done.  They  got  an  awful  good  opinion  of  themselves  —  those 
Ruggleses.  Amos's  wife  threw  an  awful  fit,  I  heard,  when 


EXQUISITE  THINGS  57 

her  brother  married  the  Missus  which  up  to  that  time  had 
been  practically  a  Nobody.  Now  there's  a  child  from  an 
orphanage  come  to  get  a  look-see  at  the  moneybags.  Can 
you  see  'em  standing  for  it,  Steb?" 

"The  Missus  is  too  smart  to  have  any  will  drawed  that 
them  Ruggleses  can  break." 

"You  never  can  tell,  Steb.  There's  lawyers  and  lawyers. 
Some  of  'em  could  drive  a  coach  unscorched  through  hell." 

"Well,  I  hope  young  Gordon  don't  get  any  of  it  —  his 
aunt's  money,  I  mean.  He's  a  bad  one,  Gordon  is!  Re 
member  how  he  almost  killed  the  roan  colt  last  time  he  was 
here?  Murphy  wasn't  goin'  to  stand  by  and  have  no  horse 
abused  like  that.  I  seen  it  all.  When  he  interfered,  Gord 
went  for  him  with  his  quirt.  If  the  Missus  hadn't  showed 
up  when  she  did,  Mike'd  busted  the  young  roughneck  wide 
open."  Murphy  was  the  Theddon  coachman. 

"She's  provin'  she's  a  bit  of  an  angel,"  observed  Murfins. 
"I'd  hate  to  see  her  get  the  short  end  of  it."  He  meant 
Madelaine. 

They  worked  in  silence  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  Steb- 
bins  remarked : 

"Wonder  how  Gord'll  behave  next  time  he  comes  to  visit 
here  and  finds  the  princess  his  aunt's  got  out  of  an  asylum." 

"Not  an  asylum,  Steb.  An  asylum's  a  crazy  house  where 
they  store  insane  lunatics  that  ain't  quite  right  in  their 
heads!" 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PRAYER 


Bernie  Gridley  soon  acquired  a  girl  chum,  a  boy-baiting 
little  blond  with  a  profile  like  the  face  on  an  old-style 
quarter-dollar.  Her  name  was  Elinore  Carver. 

As  I  was  Nathan  Forge's  squire,  Elinore  became  my 
Heart's  Desire.  Which  may  read  like  "peanut"  poetry  but 
which  really  did  possess  so  much  poetry  at  the  time  that  I 
am  allowing  the  euphony  to  remain. 

Thus  did  our  quartette  facilitate  the  course  of  true  love, 
conspire  to  make  it  run  smoothly  and  hoodwink  our  parents 
considered  as  being  meddlesome  outsiders  on  general  prin 
ciple.  Family  catechisms  in  the  evening  as  to  our  associa 
tions  during  the  day  probed  in  vain  for  any  milk-and-water 
assignations  so  long  as  the  parties  on  all  sides  could  swear 
truthfully  that  they  had  traveled  during  the  shining  hours 
with  those  of  their  own  sex  and  any  propinquity  came  about 
in  pairs  and  purely  by  accident. 

Although  Bernie's  mother  did  her  worst  to  keep  her  off 
spring  an  exasperating  little  prig,  still  in  her  heart  the 
Dresden  Doll  was  a  daughter  of  Eve.  And  ere  long  it  was 
accepted  in  school  that  she  and  Nathan  had  been  called  and 
by  one  another  chosen. 

Peter  Taro,  the  school's  bad  boy,  had  individualistic  ideas 
about  it,  however.  Peter  was  too  crude,  too  far  down  in  the 
social  scale,  to  acquire  a  sweetheart.  Therefore  he  had  a 
propensity  to  make  light  of  the  tenderest  sentiments  of 
others.  He  would  walk  on  the  opposite  side  of  any  Lover's 
Lane  —  meaning  any  village  street  whereon  boy  and  maid 
could  woo  without  the  horrible  possibility  of  being  met  by 
parents  or  those  who  would  carry  tales  to  parents  —  and 
make  of  himself  a  general  nuisance.  On  picket  fences  with 
a  stick  he  would  beat  a  tom-tom.  Or  he  would  carry  on 


PRAYER  59 

loud-voiced  conversation  with  the  Romeo  in  the  case  on 
subjects  of  which  the  Juliet  was  ignorant.  Being  snubbed 
or  rebuked,  he  sought  vengeance  in  rhyme.  His  lines 
apropos  of  Nathan's  affair  ran: 

"Get  your  fiddle  and  feel  quite  fiddley ; 
—  Nathan  Forge  and  Bernice  Gridley!" 

This  sort  of  thing  he  shouted  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  tc 
the  perplexity  of  the  neighborhood  and  the  edification  of  the 
grown-up  world  in  general.  Bernice  affected  to  be  furious. 
So  ultimately  Nathan  had  to  fight  the  Taro  boy.  Which  he 
did  —  adequately. 

It  was  the  first  fight  of  Nathan's  career  —  a  "kid-fight" 
perchance  —  but  no  less  virile  or  significant  on  that  account. 
For  like  many  quiet,  peaceable  men,  when  aroused  the  boy 
became  a  fury.  Lithe  as  a  cat,  nimble  as  a  bantam-weight, 
he  pounded  Peter  Taro  until  the  blood-smeared  youngster 
fled. 

Those  were  days  of  bliss  and  nights  of  heartburn.  Vividly 
the  hours  come  back  that  we  spent  before  kitchen  mirrors, 
steam-misty  with  boiling  cabbage  or  wash-water  of  our 
homes,  tying  and  retying  our  "cravats",  plastering  down 
our  hair  with  pilfered  bay  rum.  If  we  had  the  front  of 
our  hair  parted  and  well  pasted  down,  and  the  toes  of  our 
shoes  reasonably  shined,  we  were  groomed  satisfactorily 
for  hymeneal  campaigning. 

That  each  of  us  possessed  a  hat-lifting  cowlick  in  the 
rear  like  the  business  paraphernalia  of  a  small  porcupine  and 
that  our  heels  were  eternally  yellow  with  mud  were  among 
the  happy  paradoxes  of  boyhood.  We  were  as  we  were  when 
we  looked  in  our  mirrors  —  when  we  posed  for  phrenological 
inventory  and  profile  analysis.  And  besides,  a  good  soldier 
in  either  war  or  love  never  looks  behind  anyhow. 


II 

We  had  followed  the  two  little  girls  homeward  one  after 
noon,  chaffing  and  mauling  each  other  as  we  would  never 
have  done  if  they  had  not  been  somewhere  about  to  see,  when 
,  we  returned  along  the  Green  River  in  the  afterglow.  Even- 


60  THE  FOG 

tually  we  threw  ourselves  down  on  a  knoll.  While  we  idled 
there,  the  valley  grew  hushed  and  the  stars  came  out. 

"Say,  Nat,"  I  demanded,  "whatcher  goin'  to  be  when  you 
grow  up?" 

"A  writer  and  a  poet,"  he  answered  without  hesitation. 

I  pondered  this.  We  were  emerging  from  the  period 
when  manhood  meant  freedom  to  turn  pirate  or  Indian 
fighter.  If  Nathan  had  declared  his  intention  of  becoming 
a  locomotive  engineer  or  a  clown  in  a  circus,  I  should  not 
have  hesitated  to  take  him  at  his  word.  But  a  writer  —  a 
poet! 

"Aw,  go  on !"  I  retorted.    "Poets  don't  make  no  money !" 

"I  dunno's  I  wanner  make  money." 

I  looked  at  him.  His  face  —  growing  a  bit  less  freckled 
now  —  was  held  between  his  hands  as  he  lay  on  his  chest 
and  looked  vaguely  off  across  the  smooth  river  where  the 
trout  were  jumping.  But  before  I  could  comment  causti 
cally  on  this  he  asked,  "Whatter  you  gonna  be,  Billy  ?" 

"I  dunno.  I'll  be  a  business  man,  I  guess,  and  make  bar 
rels  of  money  —  as  much  as  Mr.  Gridley." 

"What  kind  of  business?" 

"Oh,  I  dunno.  I'll  own  a  factory,  I  guess  —  and  be  presi 
dent  of  a  bank  afterwards,  so  when  I  want  money  all  I 
gotta  do  is  go  into  my  bank  and  help  myself." 

We  lay  in  silence  for  several  minutes.  Then  I  per 
sisted  : 

"If  you're  gonna  be  a  writer,  whatcher  gonna  write?" 

"Oh,  books  and  poems  and  things  —  that  hurt  me  so  much 
sometimes  when  I  look  at  'em." 

"Huh !  That  ain't  a  regular  business.  That's  a  lazy 
man's  job.  Judge  Prescott  says  so.  His  daughter,  Annie, 
married  somebody  who  writes  poetry  and  the  Judge  has  to 
support  both  of  'em.  I  heard  him  say  so.  Betcha  your  pa 
don't  letcher,  anyhow !" 

"Betcher  he  will !  Betcher  he  won't  have  anything  to  say 
about  it  —  damn  him!" 

Nathan's  lips  tightened.  It  was  not  petulancy;  it  was 
the  bitterness  of  mistreated  childhood. 

"You  ought  not  to  swear  about  your  father,  Nat,"  I  told 
him,  horrified. 

"Why  not?  Is  it  worse  to  say  what  I  think  than  to  go 
around  with  it  makin'  me  mad  inside?" 


PRAYER  61 

**No,  but  it's  wicked  to  swear  about  your  folks.  You 
won't  live  long.  The  Ten  Commandments  says  so." 

"Aw,  whatter  I  care  for  the  old  Ten  Commandments? 
All  the  Bible  and  the  church  and  things  is  made  for  anyhow 
is  to  back  up  grown  folks  when  they  wanner  work  off  their 
hell  on  us  kids!" 

"Don't  you  believe  there's  a  God?" 

"Well,  somebody  probably  made  all  the  stars  and  trees 
and  flowers  —  all  the  pretty  things.  But  it  spoils  it  to 
think  it's  the  same  person  that  dad  says  is  so  precious  to  his 
soul  every  week  in  prayer  meetin'.  See  that  evenin'  star 
now,  Billy,  hangin'  low  over  Haystack.  Ain't  it  pretty? 
S'pose  anybody  that  made  such  a  shinin'  star  would  be  in 
partnership  with  a  growed-up  person  who's  so  tight  he 
won't  buy  his  kid  a  pair  o'  pants?  Billy,  whatter  we  got 
all  this  God-business  and  church-business  crammed  down 
our  throats  for?  Why  can't  we  just  drink  it  in  by  comin' 
out  to  a  place  like  this,  where  it's  all  quiet,  and  watchin'  an 
evenin'  star?" 

"But  we  gotta  love  our  parents,  Nat.    The  Bible  says  so !" 

"Yeah  —  and  the  same  Bible  says  we  oughta  be  clean  and 
peaceful  and  good  inside.  And  when  a  feller  hates 
anybody  like  I  hate  my  father,  how  can  he  turn  around 
and  say  he  loves  him  and  act  like  he  loves  him,  when  he 
don't?" 

"All  the  same,"  I  reiterated,  "the  Bible  says  we  gotta,  and 
we  have !" 

"Well,  I'll  do  it  till  I'm  twenty-one,"  assented  Nathan, 
"  'cause  I  can't  help  myself.  Then  I'll  go  to  hell  and  roast, 
if  it's  wicked  —  but  I'll  stop  lovin'  him  and  do  as  I  honest 
please.  Between  the  time  I'm  twenty-one  and  the  time  I 
go  to  hell,  I'll  feel  peaceful  and  satisfied  for  a  while,  any 
how." 

I  felt  my  friend  was  damning  himself  irrevocably,  sin 
ning  against  the  Holy  Ghost.  I  had  to  get  away  from  those 
sulphur  fumes,  so  I  went  back  to  poetry. 

"Howja  know  you  can  write  poetry  to  make  your  livin' 
at  it?  Have  you  tried?" 

"Yeah !    Lots  of  times.     It's  a  cinch !" 

"You  mean  you've  got  some  poems  writ  already?" 

"Sure,  slathers  of  'em." 

"Where  are  they?" 


62  THE  FOG 

"Home  —  locked  up  so  Pa  won't  get  'em  —  along  with 
Bernie's  letters." 

"What's  your  Ma  think  about  you  bein'  a  poet?" 

"Oh,  she  don't  think  nothin',  only  what  a  hard  time  she 
has  with  Pa  and  that  Edith  will  marry  money." 

"Ain't  you  ever  talked  with  her  about  it?" 

"I  see  myself!" 

"Thunder!  Can't  you  go  to  your  Ma  and  talk  about  — 
things  —  when  you  wanna  ?" 

"No!  'Stead  o'  that,  I  have  to  listen  to  Ma's  troubles. 
And  if  I  don't  happen  to  agree  with  her,  she  gets  to  twitchin' 
all  over  her  face  and  goes  off  to  rock  in  the  dark  by  herself. 
She  tells  me,  'Oh,  you're  growin'  up  into  a  small-sized  edi 
tion  of  your  father!'  Damn  her,  too!" 

"But  if  you  can't  talk  with  your  Ma  about  things,  and 
what  you're  gonna  be  when  you're  growed  up,  who  can  you 
talk  'em  with?" 

"Don't  talk  'em  with  nobody  —  exceptin'  you  sometimes. 
Keep  'em  to  myself.  That's  why  I  wanner  marry  Bernie 
just  as  quick  as  I  can.  I  gotta  feelin'  way  down  inside  that 
she'll  listen  when  she's  my  wife,  and  help." 

He  spoke  the  word  wife  with  difficulty. 


ill 

"I  have  always  understood  my  children  perfectly,"  de 
clared  Anna  Forge  years  later,  when  the  Forge  domestic 
structure  went  down  in  wreckage,  as  it  was  bound  to  go 
down  in  wreckage.  "Edith  would  have  been  all  right  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  her  brother's  example  always  before  her. 
And  Nathan,  he  took  after  his  father  —  bigoted,  stubborn, 
cold-blooded,  hard-hearted,  indifferent  to  those  who  have 
thanklessly  tried  to  do  their  utmost  to  help  him." 

"I  have  always  understood  my  children  perfectly,"  con 
tended  Johnathan  Forge  to  old  Archibald  Cuttner,  when  five 
years  later  Johnathan  was  having  a  hysterical  time  to  keep 
Nathan  from  marrying  his  granddaughter.  "Edith  takes 
after  her  mother  —  fizzle-headed,  irresponsible,  neurotic,  al 
ways  thinking  of  herself  and  her  troubles,  inconsistent,  a 
woman  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  As  for  Nathan,  God 
only  knows  who  he  takes  after.  I'm  almost  ready  to  believe 


PRAYER  63 

him  sent  to  me  as  my  cross.  I  trained  the  boy  by  ex 
ample  and  precept  to  walk  uprightly,  flee  evil,  honor  and 
respect  his  parents,  worship  God.  But  he  is  determined 
to  go  his  own  way,  regardless  of  my  counsel.  It's  partly 
the  age  in  which  we  live  that's  to  blame.  Disrespect 
and  profanation  is  in  the  very  air  the  rising  generation 
breathes." 

"I  am  persuaded,"  wrote  a  popular  clergyman  recently, 
"that  what  this  age  needs  more  than  all  else  is  abstersion 
from  the  follies  and  'broad-mindedness'  of  this  blatant  day; 
we  need  to  return  to  the  'good  old  time,'  the  fundamental 
things,  —  unconditional  respect  for  parents,  rigorous  observ 
ance  of  the  Sabbath,  the  replacement  of  woman  back  in 
the  home  where  Nature  intended  her  to  function ;  less  frivo 
lous  nonsense  and  'isms'  in  our  educational  systems  and 
more  reading- writing-and-arithmetic,  good,  old-fashioned 
fear  of  fire  and  brimstone  thundered  from  our  pulpits  and 
a  wholesome  terror  of  the  wrath  of  God  injected  into  the 
hearts  of  a  shallow  and  mocking  generation  who  bow  down 
and  worship  the  Golden  Calf." 

"I  hope,"  remarked  Uncle  Joe  Fodder,  the  town  philos 
opher,  one  night  when  he  and  I  discussed  the  Forges  —  "I 
hope  the  Lord's  got  a  sense  o'  humor !  How  could  He  re 
main  the  Almighty  without  it?" 


IV 

The  Forges,  on  coming  to  Paris,  had  taken  a  small  gray 
cottage  on  Spring  Street.  This  cottage  stood  on  a  corner 
with  a  short  width  of  yard  between  the  Adams  Street  side 
walk  and  the  windows  of  the  Forge  dining  room.  And  on 
summer  nights  when  the  heat  required  opened  windows, 
neighbors  and  pedestrians  overheard  the  full  barrage  of 
vocal  artillery  that  husband  and  wife  laid  down  over  trivial 
family  matters  or  the  scion  who  was  "bringing  their  gray 
hairs  down  in  sorrow  to  the  grave." 

From  the  day  he  was  born  until  the  day  he  married,  the 
boy  seemed  a  bone  of  contention  between  his  parents.  For 
the  most  part  thesd  altercations  had  to  do  with  his  mother's 
animosity  toward  the  father's  method  of  raising  his  family. 
But  always,  when  the  man's  brutality  got  the  better  of 


64  THE  FOG 

hysterical  argument,  the  affair  ended  with  the  wife's  con 
tention,  voiced  in  no  very  refined  terms,  that  she  "was  go 
ing  home  to  her  mother." 

I  forget  how  many  times  Anna  Forge  "went  home  to  her 
mother",  if  I  ever  knew.  She  threatened  to  do  it  a  couple 
of  times  a  week.  About  twice  a  year  she  made  the  threat 
good.  On  these  occasions  she  packed  all  her  personal 
clothes  and  possessions  in  several  bags  and  telescope  valises, 
took  a  half  day  to  "wash  and  iron  the  children";  called 
Uncle  Joe  Fodder's  depot  hack  and  "left  her  husband  in 
style",  as  Uncle  Joe  put  it. 

She  returned  to  a  grass-widowed  mother  who  lived  in  a 
small  manufacturing  city  out  in  York  State.  This  mother 
sympathized  with  her  the  first  day ;  listened  in  silence  to  her 
troubles  the  second ;  was  indifferent  to  them  the  third ;  tole 
rated  them  the  fourth ;  endured  them  the  fifth ;  "had  words" 
with  her  daughter  the  sixth;  quarreled  with  her  openly  on 
the  seventh  and  ordered  her  out  of  the  house  on  the  eighth. 
Then  back  Anna  Forge  returned  to  John,  entered  her  own 
home  haughtily,  failed  to  speak  to  him  until  the  third  day, 
then  started  around  the  six-month  cycle  all  over. 

These  semiannual  trips  were  gala  days  in  the  lives  of 
Nathan  and  his  sister,  —  until  he  began  to  realize  the  tragedy 
that  sponsored  them. 

One  night  he  came  running  over  to  my  house  in  great 
distress.  He  "whistled  me  out"  and  I  found  him  sobbing 
distraughtly. 

"Pa  an'  Ma  have  had  an  awful  fight,  Billy!"  he  told  me, 
"Pa  wouldn't  give  her  no  money  for  a  dress  to-day.  But 
when  he  came  home  from  downtown  he  fetched  one  he'd 
bought  himself.  Ma  looked  at  it  and  said  she  wouldn't  be 
seen  in  the  thing.  Pa  says  she  could  wear  it  or  go  naked. 
They  got  to  havin'  words,  Billy,  and  pretty  soon  Ma  picked 
up  the  butcher  knife  and  says  by  the  White  Christ  she'd 
cut  Pa's  throat.  And  Pa  chucked  a  blue-glass  pitcher  at 
her  all  full  o'  milk  and  said  she  was  full  o'  high-flown  Yankee 
notions  and  he'd  take  'em  out  of  her.  Ma  says  she'd  go 
back  to  her  mother  and  Pa  says,  'Yes,  that'd  be  a  good 
scheme,  only  in  a  few  days  she'd  have  a  fight  with  her 
mother  and  be  right  back  again.'  Then  Ma  says  she'd  chuck 
herself  in  the  river.  And  Pa  says  she  didn't  have  the  guts, 
And  Ma  says  oh,  she  didn't  have,  did  she,  and  started 


PRAYER  65 

right  out  of  the  house.     She's  off  toward  the  river  now, 
Billy,  and  I'm  scared  stiff  she'll  do  it." 

"You  mean  she's  went  to  commit  suicide?"  I  demanded 
aghast. . 

"Yeah !  —  And  her  forehead  was  all  bloody  where  the 
pitcher  struck  her." 

"How  long's  she  been  gone?" 

"She  just  started.  I  came  right  over.  Pa  sent  me  up  to 
bed  and  I  skipped  out  over  the  woodshed  roof." 

"Can  she  swim?" 

"No!  Anyhow,  people  that's  committing  suicide  don't 
care  whether  they  can  swim !  Most  of  'em  don't !" 

"Gosh,  she  may  really  kill  herself.  Whatcher  want  me 
to  do?" 

"Come  with  me,  Billy.    Maybe  we  can  stop  her !" 

We  reached  the  river  but  found  no  woman.  Nathan 
felt  for  a  certainty  his  mother  had  cast  herself  into  the 
water  and  would  not  be  consoled.  He  knelt  upon  the  close- 
cropped  grass  and  with  face  on  his  hands  he  sobbed  dis 
tressingly. 

"Why  can't  I  have  a  Pa  and  Ma  that  don't  fight  all  the 
time?"  he  cried  hysterically.    "Other  fellows  do!    Why  can't, 
I?    Oh,  Ma!    Ma!    Ma!" 

I  tried  to  console  him  but  I  was  rather  ill  myself.  Some 
how  I  felt  responsible  for  Mrs.  Forge's  death,  not  having 
reached  the  stream  in  time  to  intercept  and  dissuade  her.  My 
own  face  was  awash  with  tears  as  I  tried  to  persuade  my 
friend  to  go  home  and  tell  his  dad. 

"I  climbed  out  on  the  shed  roof  and  skun  away,"  cried 
Nathan.  "I'm  scared  stiff  to  go  home  again  —  ever !  He'll 
whale  the  daylights  out  o'  me  fer  tellin'  anybody  about  it, 
even  you !" 

"We  better  go  somewheres,"  I  argued.  "We  can't  save 
her  now.  And  we  can't  stay  out  here  all  night.  You  better 
come  home  with  me,  and  I'll  tell  my  Ma  and  she'll  see  what 
you  better  do.  She  ain't  afraid  of  your  Pa !  She'll  tell  him 
what  she  thinks  of  him.  My  Ma's  great  at  tellin'  your  folks 
what  she  thinks  of  'em!" 

I  persuaded  Nat  to  come  home  with  me.  It  was  a  tragic 
return. 

My  mother  gathered  us  against  her  ample  bosom,  an  arm 
about  each  of  us,  while  she  listened  to  the  horror  of  the 


66  THE  FOG 

thing  we  blurted  out.     Then  she  smiled  sadly  and  kissed 
us. 

"Bless  your  hearts !  Nathan's  mother  has  been  here  with 
me,  telling  me  about  it,"  mother  said.  "She  must  have  turned 
back  through  Pine  Street  while  you  were  on  the  way  to  the 
river.  She  wouldn't  kill  herself.  She  loves  Nathan  too 
much  to  do  that.  She  said  so!" 


Nathan's  mother  went  home  that  night  and  when  she  re- 
entered  the  house,  John  Forge  looked  up  from  his  paper 
and  said: 

"Huh !    Back,  are  you  ?    I  thought  so !" 

The  mother  passed  up  to  bed  with  some  hot  retort  about 
"her  life  belonging  to  her  children". 

But  she  cried  all  that  night  and  John  Forge  slept  on  the 
downstairs  sofa. 

"I  heard  him  say  it  was  a  hell  of  a  home,"  Nathan  told 
me  afterward. 

VI 

Outside  of  parental  incompatibility,  the  other  bane  of 
Nat's  life  in  those  years  was  the  manner  in  which  his  father 
compelled  him  to  dress.  A  high-strung,  sensitive  lad,  nat 
urally  fastidious,  he  could  not  have  suffered  a  worse  handi 
cap  in  the  matter  of  polish  and  poise  in  later  years  than 
resulted  from  Johnathan's  policy  of  dressing  his  family. 

The  boy  was  the  butt  of  the  school  for  his  oddities  of 
raiment.  Johnathan's  idea  of  clothing  was  merely  some 
thing  to  cover  primeval  nakedness.  The  first  new  suit  the 
boy  possessed  he  purchased  with  money  he  had  made  run 
ning  errands.  Invariably  he  wore  coats  and  trousers  cut 
down  from  those  his  father  had  discarded.  This  would  not 
have  been  so  bad  if  his  mother  had  been  any  sort  of  tailoress. 
But  she  was  slovenly  with  needle  and  scissors  and  the  jests 
of  his  school  companions  were  Chinese  cruelty.  "The  Scare 
crow"  they  called  him. 

Openly  he  was  twitted  that  he  was  not  invited  to  parties 
because  of  his  freakish  appearance.  Johnathan  Forge  was 


PRAYER  67 

small  in  stature  and  at  seventeen  Nathan  was  almost  of  a 
size  with  his  father.  After  that  the  lad  was  compelled  to 
wear  Johnathan's  suits  without  remodeling.  When  John- 
athan  thus  relegated  a  cast-off  suit  to  his  son,  while  he 
bought  himself  a  new  one,  he  made  the  boy  pay  something 
from  his  savings,  whether  he  wanted  to  purchase  the  clothes 
or  not.  John's  philosophy  was  "making  a  man  of  Nat"  and 
"teaching  him  to  take  care  of  his  clothes  because  they  cost 
money."  But  it  took  years  of  hard,  deliberate  self-training 
to  make  Nat  forego  a  painful  self -consciousness  of  clothes 
and  personal  appearance. 

Often  in  prayer  meeting,  which  Nathan  was  forced  to 
attend  religiously  after  fourteen,  as  I  listened  to  John  Forge 
giving  intimate  details  of  the  spiritual  partnership  between 
himself  and  the  Savior,  I  heard  Nathan  snarl  under  his 
breath : 

"Then  I  wish  Jesus  would  put  it  into  his  head  to  get  me 
a  new  pair  o'  pants !  I  hope  the  Lord  goes  around  lookin' 
decent  in  His  clothes  but  I  doubt  it  or  He'd  have  some  pity 
on  me !" 

VII 

Outside  of  school,  our  lives  were  tied  up  intimately  with 
the  Methodist  Church.  We  had  no  movies  or  theaters  to 
speak  of  in  those  days,  few  sports,  certainly  no  parties  or 
dances,  —  at  least  for  Nathan.  The  only  party  he  ever  at 
tended,  with  parental  sanction,  up  to  the  time  of  his  ma 
jority,  was  little  Bernice-Theresa's  of  previous  record  and 
that  largely  because  it  fell  within  the  scope  of  a  school 
affair. 

We  went  to  church  morning  and  evening  on  Sunday  and 
to  Junior  League  at  four  o'clock.  We  went  to  Tuesday- 
night  class  meeting  and  were  scared  nearly  out  of  our  wits 
at  being  called  to  stand  up  and  testify  how  much  we  loved 
God  when  we  didn't  know  whether  we  loved  Him  or  not. 
And  on  Thursday  nights  we  sat  through  those  long,  dis 
tressing  silences  between  testimonies  when  forty  people 
waited  for  the  spirit  to  move  the  brethren  and  lips  whis 
pered  silently,  committing  sentiments  to  memory  which 
were  uttered  parrot-like  once  the  whisperers  were  on  their 
feet.  We  knew  before  we  started  in  who  was  going  to  pray 


68  THE  FOG 

the  longest  and  for  what  he  was  going  to  pray ;  who  was  go 
ing  to  sing  the  loudest  and  what  he  was  going  to  "call  for" 
in  the  matter  of  hymns;  who  was  going  to  testify  the  hard 
est  and  what  his  remarks  were  going  to  include.  My  only 
comment  on  these  weekly  spiritual  gatherings,  in  so  far  as 
two  growing  boys  were  made  to  attend  under  pressure,  was 
that  they  did  us  no  lasting  harm. 

The  red-letter  days  in  our  lives,  however,  were  the 
Friday-night  "sociables"  and  bean  suppers,  or  the  concerts 
given  for  Easter,  Harvest  and  Christmas. 

Absolutely  forbidden  company  or  contact  with  the  other 
sex  by  narrow  parental  decree,  the  boy  Nathan,  being  a 
normal,  healthy  youngster,  had  either  to  repress  natural 
maturing  emotions  until  they  found  outlet  in  clandestine, 
perverted  channels,  or  he  had  to  gain  worldly  knowledge 
and  sex-poise  by  the  hard,  raw  route  of  searing  experience 
when  John  was  no  longer  able  to  make  his  decree  effective. 

John  Forge's  argument  was  that  sex,  as  well  as  money, 
being  a  basic  root  of  all  human  evil,  the  way  to  keep  a  boy 
from  disaster  was  to  prohibit  him  the  company  of  sex 
altogether. 

John  Forge  had  married  unhappily,  therefore  all  mar 
riages  were  unhappy.  Nat  should  not  duplicate  his  father's 
mistake  if  John  had  to  kill  him  to  save  him  from  it. 

If  Nathan  attended  any  school  or  neighborhood  gather 
ing  and  his  father  heard  of  it  afterward,  the  man  had 
two  questions  ready  for  his  son:  (i)  "Were  there  any 
girls  present?"  and  (2)  "Did  you  kiss  'em?" 

John  Forge  had  a  crazed  obsession  about  his  boy  kissing 
a  girl. 

In  the  school  yard  and  even  at  church  "sociables"  we 
often  played  asinine  childish  games,  "Ring  Around  the 
Rosy",  "Copenhagen"  and  "Drop  the  Pillow."  But  Nathan, 
fearing  his  father's  wrath,  was  ever  the  wallflower.  And 
he  was  deeply  in  love  with  Bernice-Theresa,  or  thought  he 
was.  Other  boys  kissed  their  "girls."  Why  shouldn't  he? 

"I've  got  to  kiss  her !  I've  just  simply  got  to  kiss  her !" 
he  consequently  affirmed  to  me;  no  emperor  ever  planned 
the  ravishing  of  a  rival  kingdom  with  the  sangfroid  with 
which  Nathan  deliberated  upon  the  necessity  for  osculatory 
assault  on  the  Dresden  Doll. 

"The  thing  to  do,"  I  advised  gravely,  "is  to  get  her  alone 


PRAYER  69 

where  she  can't  scream  or  bring  help.  And  it's  got  to  be 
done  in  such  a  way  that  she  don't  tell  her  folks !  Because 
then  they'll  tell  your  folks  and  your  dad  will  just  simply 
kill  you!" 

This  might  seem  impossible,  but  to  fourteen  nothing  is 
impossible. 

We  thought  of  intriguing  Bernice  into  the  woods  at  the 
edge  of  town,  into  the  haunted  dwelling  next  to  the  tan 
nery,  into  all  sorts  of  lonely,  lugubrious  places.  But  the 
difficulty  lay  in  enticing  her  to  the  rendezvous  and  operating 
on  her  rosebud  lips  without  scaring  the  Dresden  Doll  half 
out  of  her  senses  and  bringing  a  boomerang  back  upon  our 
selves.  Ultimately  we  resolved  upon  a  bold  maneuver: 
We  would  kiss  Bernice  Gridley  in  church!" 

"We  could  send  her  and  Elinore  a  note,"  I  planned, 
"asking  'em  to  wait  after  the  Easter  concert.  I  could  keep 
Elinore  and  send  Bernie  out  into  the  vestibule.  Just 
as  she  comes  through  the  door  you  could  grab  her  and  do 
it !  Then  run  like  the  devil !" 

This  was  bold.  It  was  terribly  bold !  Yet  it  was  feasible. 
We  had  yet  to  learn  that  the  ecstasy  of  osculation  consists 
largely  in  the  warmth  and  passion  of  reciprocity.  We  were 
midget  cavemen,  Nathan  and  I.  Bernice-Theresa  had  to 
be  kissed  if  our  lives  were  forfeit. 

I  blush  now  when  I  consider  the  terms  of  endearment 
in  which  our  letters  of  those  days  were  penned.  Hours 
we  spent  writing  them.  The  most  indiscreet  scion  of  Pitts 
burgh  aristocracy  never  committed  himself  more  idiotically 
(to  repent  subsequently  in  curses  and  coin)  than  Nathan 
and  I  described  our  holiest,  hottest  feelings  for  the  edifica 
tion  of  those  little  snobs.  So  the  intriguing  epistles  were 
indited  and  delivered.  The  kissing  of  Bernice-Theresa 
was  on! 

Nathan  and  I  sensed  little  of  that  concert.  We  were  too 
much  occupied  visioning  the  epochal  thing  to  ensue  as  its 
aftermath. 

The  concert  began,  ran  its  course  and  ended.  And  the 
Dresden  Doll  never  appeared  more  bewitching  than  she 
did  upon  that  platform.  Two  small  boys  caught  each  other's 
eyes  and  wiped  perspiration  from  youthful  brows.  The 
fatal  day  and  hour  had  come.  Did  we  have  the  nerve  to 
go  through  with  it?  Only  the  fear  of  each  thinking  the 


70  THE  FOG 

other  cowardly  held  us  from  fleeing  that  church  when  the 
organist  began  the  postlude. 

It  had  been  a  beautiful  spring  afternoon  and  during  the 
concert  a  thunderstorm  played  above  the  village.  But  later 
the  sun  broke  through  upon  a  sweet  and  dripping  world, 
and  the  weather  gave  our  elders  no  cause  to  tarry.  The 
two  girls,  silly  and  giggling,  held  converse  with  other  little 
girls  up  near  the  altar  rail.  They  had  signified  by  signs 
and  semaphoring  to  which  grown  folk  have  no  code-book, 
that  they  would  wait  and  consider  the  momentous  things  we 
had  to  propound.  And  the  church  continued  to  empty  and 
the  janitor  to  close  the  windows. 

Nathan  and  I  stood  waiting  in  the  vestry.  It  was 
shadowed  out  there.  I  occupied  a  doorway  at  one  side. 
I  saw  the  two  little,  girls  finally  coming  down  the  center 
aisle,  and  made  a  sign  to  Nat.  He  nodded.  His  limbs 
were  turning  to  tallow ;  he  was  hoping  he  would  not  faint 
at  the  peak  of  the  conspiracy  when  nerve  alone  was  re 
quired  to  see  it  through. 

At  the  next  to  the  last  pew  the  two  girls  parted.  Elinore 
sidled  off  between  the  seats  to  make  her  way  to  my  door. 
Bernie  kept  on  and  stepped  into  the  vestry. 

The  instant  she  appeared,  all  the  pent-up  intrigue  of 
weeks  galvanized  in  Nathan. 

I  am  not  certain  where  he  kissed  her,  but  at  the  shock 
of  a  small  boy  hurtling  himself  dramatically  from  the 
shadows,  the  Dresden  Doll  recoiled  and  shrieked  and 
wilted. 

Nathan  exploded  his  kiss,  trusting  it  to  hit  its  mark.  He 
sensed  much  talcum  powder  and  cologne  in  his  nostrils, 
contact  with  adolescent  flesh,  sweet  and  soft  and  warm. 
Then,  at  the  instant  of  glorious  success,  the  wrath  of  God 
broke  from  the  heavens  and  consumed  him  as  the  fire  that 
blasted  Sodom.  From  the  skies  above,  from  the  earth, 
from  the  waters  beneath  the  earth,  from  somewhere  came  a 
Voice,  a  terrible,  blasting,  annihilating  Voice: 

"Here !  Here !  Here !  What  the  devil's  comin'  off  here, 
anyhow  ?" 

Nat  snapped  up  into  the  air.  Then  he  assumed  a  Direc 
tion.  Luckily  the  open  church  door  was  ahead.  Into  the 
soft  spring  dusk  he  shot  and  began  to  tread  the  world  be 
neath  him  crazily.  His  not  to  reason  why,  his  but  to  flee 


PRAYER  71 

or  die ;  Nathan  cleared  the  doorstep  into  thin  air  and  zoomed 
for  the  horizon.  I  was  close  behind  him. 

We  negotiated  the  walk,  the  curb  and  the  street.  We 
made  the  opposite  walk  and  kept  on  going.  We  went 
through  Pat  Larkin's  side  yard  and  Mrs.  Larkin's  choicest 
roses.  A  lot  of  sweet-pea  vines  came  next,  with  most  of 
them  trailing  behind  us.  Nat  stepped  on  a  cucumber  frame 
and  I  plowed  through  a  couple  of  yards  of  hen  wire. 
Thereupon  we  got  through  the  Alderman  property  into 
Adams  Street.  But  we  did  not  stop  there. 

We  went  through  Adams  Street,  through  Pine  and 
Walnut.  Then  out  of  town  by  the  pumping  station.  We 
covered  two  miles  that  night  before  we  finally  plunged 
into  Bancroft's  Woods  far  down  the  river.  There  we 
crawled  into  the  underbrush  and  squatted  on  our  haunches. 

Said  Nathan,  "Who  was  it?" 

Said  I,  "It  was  Mr.  Gridley !" 

Sickening  silence ! 

"Where'd  he  come  from?"  Nathan  finally  found  strength 
to  ask. 

"He  came  down  the  belfry  stairs !  I  remember  now  there 
was  something  the  matter  with  the  bell-rope  this  morning. 
He  must  have  gone  up  with  John  Chase  to  fix  it." 

"Her  father !"  groaned  Nathan.    "Billy  —  this  is  the  end !" 

"Not  on  your  tintype  it  ain't!  It's  only  the  beginning!" 
I  retorted. 

"Billy  —  what  are  we  going  to  do?" 

So  Guy  Fawkes  must  have  queried  his  lieutenants  when 
the  well-known  Gunpowder  Plot  went  slightly  awry. 

"I  dunno,  Nathan.  It's  a  cinch  we  can't  go  home!  We 
can't  ever  go  home  again !" 

"That's  right,"  agreed  Nathan.  "Maybe  Mr.  Gridley  is 
at  my  house  right  this  minute,  tellin'  it  all  to  dad !" 

"It  looks,  Nathan,  as  if  we'd  have  to  leave  this  place 
for  good  and  all.  Have  you  got  any  money?" 

"Twenty  cents,"  said  my  friend,  totaling  his  pockets. 

"I've  got  a  dollar-seventy  in  my  bank  at  home,  if  I  could 
sneak  in  and  get  it  out." 

"That'd  be  a  dollar -ninety.  We  could  live  a  long  time 
on  a  dollar -ninety." 

" Where'd  we  go?"  I  asked. 

"West,  I  guess.    Everybody  goes  west.    Nap  Taro  went 


72  THE  FOG 

west  and  come  back  rich.  Maybe  down  the  future  years, 
if  we  could  come  back  rich,  they'd  forgive  us." 

"But  how'd  we  get  there  ?  It  costs  more'n  a  dollar-ninety 
to  get  west.  And  we  gotta  eat  in  the  meantime." 

"We'd  have  to  hop  freight  trains  like  the  tramps.  It's  a 
cinch  we  gotta  get  outa  here  or  the  police'll  catch  us." 

"Oh,  dear,  I  wisht  we  hadn't  done  it !"  I  groaned. 

"So  do  I,"  lamented  Nathan  feverishly.  "But  it's  done 
now  and  can't  be  undone." 

"That's  right.  I  don't  know  as  I  ever  heard  of  anybody 
unkissing  a  girl.  And  we  won't  be  able  to  grow  up  and 
marry  Elinore  and  Bernie  at  all " 

"Maybe  if  we  wrote  a  letter  to  'em  after  we  got  west, 
they'd  wait  for  us.  Women  do  that  sort  of  thing  some 
times —  till  death." 

"But  they're  probably  mad  at  us  by  now." 

Nathan  laid  over  on  the  rain-wet  grass  and  hid  his  face 
in  his  hands.  After  a  time  he  sat  up  and  asked  as  men 
ask  after  drifting  for  weeks  on  an  open  sea: 

"Billy,  do  you  suppose  it  would  do  any  good  to  pray?" 

I  considered  this. 

"Yes,"  I  said  devoutly,  relievedly;  "let's  pray  about  it!" 

"Who'll  pray,  Billy,  you  or  me?    You  pray!" 

"No  —  you !"  I  argued.     "You  did  the  kissin' !" 

"All  right,"  said  Nathan  brokenly.     "But  what'll  I  say?" 

"I'd  ask  God  first  to  forgive  the  sin  of  it.  Then  I'd 
beseech  Him  to  show  us  a  way  out  —  because  we're  sorry 
—  terribly  sorry  —  and  a  way  out  is  what  we  need 
most." 

Again  Nathan  considered,  ashen-faced,  biting  his  nails 
until  the  blood  came.  Then  two  distraught  boys,  hatless, 
their  clothing  bedaubed  and  briar-torn,  facing  the  most 
hideous  dilemma  thus  far  in  their  lives,  knelt  in  the  shower- 
washed  alders.  Earnestly  they  besought  aid  from  the 
giver  of  every  good  and  perfect  gift. 

"Oh,  God,"  prayed  Nathan,  "we  have  sinned  —  we  have 
sinned  —  against  heaven  and  against  Thee.  Lord,  we  have 
kissed  —  we  have  kissed  —  no,  /  have  kissed  —  a  g-g-girl  — 
and  her  father,  Mr.  Caleb  M.  Gridley,  who  runs  the  tannery 
here  in  Paris  —  he  caught  us!" 

Nathan  paused.  He  was  very  near  sobbing.  His  voice 
broke  several  times  in  attempts  to  continue,  striving  to  re- 


PRAYER  73 

member  orthodox  forms  of  divine  supplication  which  might 
be  appropriate  for  the  present  situation. 

"He  —  he  —  he  caught  us,  oh,  God!"  went  on  Nathan. 
"Oh,  God,  we  beseech  Thee  —  we  beseech  Thee  —  not  to 
wreak  Thy  anger  upon  us,  nor  visit  us  with  Thy  dis 
pleasure  —  displeasure.  Hear  our  prayers,  we  pray  Thee  — 
we  pray  Thee  —  and  have  compassion  upon  us  —  upon  us. 
Mr.  C.  M.  Gridley  is  mad  at  my  father  anyhow,  over  a 
suit  for  some  leather  that  ain't  never  been  settled  up,  and 
now  that  he  knows  I've  kissed  his  daughter,  he'll  probably 
get  action  on  collection.  Mr.  John  H.  Forge,  my  father, 
will  wreck  his  displeasure  on  me,  his  son.  Oh,  God,  we 
didn't  mean  to  do  it,  God,  —  that  is,  we  meant  to  do  it  but 
didn't  mean  to  get  caught.  Therefore  shield  and  protect 
us  in  Thy  infinite  mercy,  oh,  God,  and  turn  not  Thine  ear 
from  us  —  Thine  ear  from  us.  Lead  us  not  into  temptation 
but  deliver  us  from  evil;  for  Thine  is  the  power  and  the 
glory  forever.  Amen!" 

Nathan  turned  quickly,  anxiously. 

"Did  I  say  enough?"  he  demanded.  "I  suppose  I  might 
have  laid  it  on  stronger." 

I  held  some  such  idea,  but  it  was  unethical  and  inappro 
priate  now  to  return  and  reopen  the  prayer.  I  said  God 
was  assumed  to  know  everything  and  inferred  that  un 
doubtedly  He  realized  the  exigency  of  the  present  cir 
cumstances  anyhow. 

"What'll  we  do  now?"  Nathan  next  asked.  "Had  we 
better  go  west?" 

"No,"  I  finally  decided.  "Let's  wait  and  see  how  the 
prayer  takes  hold.  The  Bible  says  'Knock  and  ye  shall 
find ;  seek  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you'.  I  say  we  trust 
Him." 

"You  mean  go  home?" 

"Well,  we  can  sort  of  sneak  up  and  see  what's  happened. 
And  if  the  prayer  don't  do  nothin'  then  we  can  think  about 
going  west  afterward." 

This  possessed  sound  points  and  as  the  stars  were  com 
ing  out  and  the  frogs  were  piping  shrilly  in  the  boglands, 
we  arrived  by  back  roads  and  streets  at  the  Forge  cottage. 

"Pa  and  Ma  are  at  it  again !"  groaned  Nat  in  a  sick 
whisper.  "Probably  old  Gridley's  been  here  and  told'  em. 
Listen !" 


74  THE  FOG 

I  heard  epithets  applied  to  a  woman  which  made  my 
mother's  face  whiten  when  I  suggested  them  at  bedtime. 

"Nat  and  I  heard  'em  through  the  kitchen  window,"  I 
declared.  "We  was  lyin'  underneath  it,  listenin'." 

"Well,  sonny,  don't  you  ever  remember  those  words  or 
think  of  them  again.  They  mean  horrible,  vile,  foul,  wicked 
things.  That's  all  I  can  tell  you  that  you  can  understand — 
now!" 

"But  Nathan's  father  said  'em!" 

"Then  Nathan's  father  is  a  wicked  man,  even  if  he  does 
get  up  in  prayer  meeting  and  tell  how  precious  the  Lord 
is  to  his  soul.  And  did  Nathan  get  into  the  house?" 

"Yeah,  he  sneaked  up  to  bed  the  front  way.  The  door 
was  open." 

"Well,  you  see,  dear,  your  prayer  was  answered,  wasn't 
it?" 

"It  looks  so,  Ma!" 

"Always  remember  it,  laddie.  You're  going  to  get  in 
tighter  situations  than  you  got  into  to-night.  Don't  ever 
be  ashamed  to  pray,  laddie.  It  never  harms  and  always 
helps." 

"Do  you  think  God  really  heard  it,  Ma?" 

"Your  prayer  was  answered,  wasn't  it,  laddie?" 

"Yeah,  Ma!" 

"Then  isn't  that  answer  enough  ?  What  more  need  mother 
say?" 

It  developed  that  Mr.  Gridley  had  not  recognized  the 
identity  of  his  daughter's  demonstrative  friend.  In  fact, 
he  had  forgotten  the  incident  within  ten  seconds  after  Nathan 
had  taken  unto  himself  wings  and  flown.  He  was  far 
more  interested  in  finding  a  short  ladder  to  fix  that  bell- 
rope. 

Thus  for  the  first  time  in  a  great  vicissitude  Nathan  and 
I  learned  that  the  worst  enemy  a  man  can  have  is  often 
his  own  imagination. 

VIII 

The  battle  royal  between  Nathan's  father  and  mother 
had  been  caused  by  something  of  graver  import  to  my 
friend  than  any  mere  family  adjustment  between  Forge 
and  Gridley  over  osculatory  assault  upon  a  little  girl.  It 


PRAYER  75 

had  been  caused  by  a  decision  voiced  earlier  that  Sunday 
evening  by  Johnathan  that  he  was  determined  to  take  Nat 
from  school  and  put  him  to  work. 

Nathan  was  now  past  fourteen  and  legally  entitled  to 
his  "papers"  and  educational  "freedom."  John  had  been 
compelled  to  work  ten  hours  a  day  at  fourteen,  turning 
his  money  over  to  his  father.  Nathan  should  do  the  same. 
And  Mrs.  Forge  had  objected,  not  so  much  for  Nathan's 
sake,  as  because  it  was  Johnathan's  proposition. 

Old  Caleb  Gridley,  although  holding  a  seventy-dollar 
court  judgment  over  Johnathan,  had  never  been  able  to 
collect  his  money.  He  had  made  John's  life  a  burden. 
So  John  had  it  in  mind  to  suggest  that  Nathan  be  given 
a  job  in  the  tannery  and  work  out  his  father's  debt. 

Nathan,  conceded  the  smartest  boy  who  attended  the 
Academy,  was  ultimately  set  to  work  at  four  dollars  a  week. 
Johnathan  bought  his  peace  with  his  conscience  by  gen 
erously  returning  his  son  twenty-five  cents  a  week  to  be 
"squandered"  in  any  way  the  boy  chose. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BENDING  THE  TWIG 


The  girl  Madelaine  had  been  within  three  weeks  of  her 
eleventh  birthday  when  Mrs.  Theddon  adopted  her  from 
the  Corpus-Christi  Orphanage. 

If  the  child  were  precocious  in  a  queer,  matronly  way, 
her  clouded  parentage  and  life  at  the  Home  were  mainly 
responsible.  She  was  intensely  feminine  and  affectionate, 
fiercely  maternal,  all  of  which  at  first  made  for  a  certain 
distress  when  thrust  out  into  the  coeducational  environment 
of  the  Springfield  public  schools  with  children  of  equal 
age. 

Like  some  unmarried  women,  Mrs.  Theddon  was  full  of 
theories  as  to  how  a  child  should  be  reared.  Yet  the 
woman  was  neither  bigoted  nor  maudlin.  She  had  brains 
and  common  sense.  If  she  held  theories  on  child  culture 
and  child  psychology,  it  was  because  she  had  evolved  them 
from  a  shrewdness  of  observation  when  in  contact  with 
the  offspring  of  affluent  parents  with  whom  she  associated. 
There  was  no  "private  school  nonsense"  for  her  child  there 
fore,  until  Madelaine  was  old  enough  to  know  the  meaning 
and  worth  of  exclusiveness.  Beside^  for  a  few  years, 
Gracia  Theddon  wanted  the  little  girl  about  her  home  and 
private  tutors  could  never  supply  that  academic  atmosphere 
and  class  camaraderie  which  should  be  made  chief  among 
the  heritages  of  adolescence. 

So  Madelaine  went  to  the  Forest  Park  school,  and  while 
the  locality  and  its  offspring  were  above  normal,  she  stood 
out  in  her  classes  like  an  orchid  in  a  thistle  bed.  She  did 
careful,  neat,  thorough  work  and  made  friends.  But  she 
had  no  giggly  age.  No  boys  wrote  asinine  notes  to  her 
or  tried  to  flirt  with  her.  She  shrank  from  participation 
in  adolescent  pranks. 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  77 

At  home  she  quickly  absorbed  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Theddon  household.  She  became  an  avid  reader  of  every 
thing  in  the  big  Theddon  library.  For  hours  at  a  time 
she  lay  stretched  face  downward  along  the  window  seat 
in  the  southeast  corner  of  that  splendid  room,  absorbed 
in  the  classics.  And  three  years  passed  like  white  magic. 

During  her  term  in  the  ninth  grade  Madelaine  grew  per 
ceptibly.  It  was  an  awkward  time  but  never  wholly  dis 
tressing.  At  fifteen  she  was  almost  as  tall  as  her  foster- 
mother.  Then  she  began  to  grow  willowy,  lithe  and  graceful. 

She  had  few  companions  even  then,  and  did  not  seem  to 
cultivate  them. 

"Honestly,  I  wish  the  child  would  laugh  once  in  a  while," 
Mrs.  Theddon  told  a  friend,  calling  one  afternoon.  "But 
somehow  it  doesn't  occur  to  her  to  laugh.  She  acts  as  if 
the  world  were  too  big,  wonderful  and  mystic  to  contain 
such  a  thing  as  humor." 

"Then  you're  satisfied  with  her?"  the  caller  suggested. 

"Satisfied?  My  dear  woman,  there  are  times  when  I'm 
afraid  I'll  be  unable  to  satisfy  her!  That  sounds  strange, 
doesn't  it?  But  the  girl's  faith  in  every  one  and  every 
thing  is  so  absolute  and  her  ideals  so  quaint  that  I  almost 
fear  to  have  her  grow  further.  I  try  to  tell  her,  to  pave 
the  way  for  disillusion,  but  I  don't  seem  to  get  results.  She 
looks  at  me  so  hurt  and  incredulous  that  I  feel  as  though  I 
were  defiling  Eden." 

This  incredulity  of  Madelaine's  worried  her  mother  far 
more  than  the  latter  cared  to  admit.  Likewise  the  girl's 
instinctive  estheticism  and  reserve.  One  summer  evening,  as 
they  strolled  the  length  of  Sumner  Avenue,  Mrs.  Theddon 
expounded  her  philosophy  of  life  for  the  first  time  aggres 
sively,  to  her  daughter. 

"Madelaine,  dear,"  she  declared,  "I  want  you  to  think 
of  this  world  and  look  upon  life  as  a  long,  long,  series  of 
interesting  and  constructive  experiences.  All  of  them  may 
not  be  pleasant.  But  always  they  must  be  constructive. 
Whether  you  make  them  interesting  depends  entirely  upon 
yourself,  your  capacity  for  participation  in  them." 

"Participation!"  repeated  the  girl.  "What  do  you  mean 
by  participation?" 

"I  mean  plunging  in  and  enjoying  them  for  all  they're 
worth,  taking  part  in  everything  —  your  own  accorded  part 


78  THE  FOG 

—  to  the  utmost,  regardless  of  how  small  that  part  may 
be.  Don't  shrink  from  anything.  Never  be  that  most 
distressing  and  unfinished  product  —  a  "wallflower"  or 
spectator.  Plunge  in  —  taste,  feel,  enjoy,  laugh  and  love. 
Be  in  the  center  of  things,  never  on  the  edge.  Of  course, 
I  don't  meant  perverted  things,  activities  or  pursuits  that 
offend  decency  or  violate  self-respect.  And  there  is  never 
excuse  for  stirring  a  sewer,  in  order  to  prove  it's  foul." 

"I  understand,  mother  dear." 

"What  I  want  to  impress  upon  you,  and  the  greatest 
heritage  a  parent  can  pass  on  to  any  child,  is  this:  It's 
your  world,  yours  to  enjoy,  yours  to  live  in,  play  in, 
work  in,  get  the  most  from.  Every  healthy  activity  exists 
to  be  experienced  and  not  to  be  watched  while  others  ex 
perience.  Every  social  accomplishment,  every  art,  every 
science,  every  hobby,  has  come  about  and  is  enjoyed  be 
cause  normal,  healthy  people  in  the  past  have  found  pleasure, 
enjoyment  and  improvement  in  them.  If  they  have  done 
so  —  you  may  likewise.  Life  has  been  given  to  you  to  get 
your  portion.  But  Life  can't  seize  you  by  the  shoulders 
and  drag  you  in.  You  must  go  in  for  yourself.  The 
deepest  wrong  I  can  conceive  a  grown  person  doing  to 
a  younger  is  implanting  within  his  or  her  subconscious  mind 
that  horrible  'You  mustn't !'  It's  the  blackest  handicap  a 
child  can  acquire.  My  creed  is  'Do!'  Never  doubt  your 
self.  Never  believe  you're  any  different  from  any  girl  or 
woman  who  has  ever  lived  on  earth.  Because  you're  not. 
Yet  you're  not  commonplace,  either !  The  greatest  self- 
crime  is  self -depreciation.  Remember  that  all  people  be 
lieve  in  you  unless  you  doubt  yourself.  They  take  you 
not  at  somebody  else's  appraisal  but  solely  at  the  estimate 
you  place  upon  yourself.  Timid  people  are  only  those 
with  half -developed  souls.  I  don't  mean  by  not  being 
timid  that  you  should  be  noisy  or  obstreperous.  A  child's 
home  influences  should  curb  or  counteract  hoydenism.  But 
hold  up  your  head,  be  positive,  never  fear  to  look  at  life 
courageously,  to  see  it  clearly  and  see  it  whole.  The  world 
is  yours,  my  dear,  and  all  the  men  and  women  in  it  —  for 
your  enjoyment  and  boon  companions." 

"You  make  me  afraid  when  you  talk  to  me  like  that  — 
and  yet  you  make  me  glad !"  the  girl  responded  wonderingly. 

"I've  learned  it  by  bitter  experience,  dear  —  my  philoso- 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  79 

phy.  I've  told  you  something  of  my  story:  how  I  started  life 
a  poor  girl  in  a  village  up  in  Vermont.  My  father  and 
mother  were  never  able  to  see  beyond  the  village  sky 
line.  Life  and  the  outside  world  terrified  them.  Forever 
they  were  telling  me  'You  can't!'  Doubting  themselves, 
of  course  they  doubted  their  daughter.  From  'You  can't!' 
it  was  a  step  to  'You  mustn't !'  I  loved  a  man  at  eighteen 
as  dearly  as  I  ever  loved  anybody.  He  was  a  smart  young 
man,  with  many  excellent  qualities.  In  those  days  he  was 
considered  so  smart  I  doubted  that  I  could  be  his  wife. 
It  sounds  strange.  But  I  did.  I  thought  he  needed  a 
cleverer  woman  than  myself  to  be  that  wife  successfully. 
I  told  him  so.  It  broke  his  heart.  Then  my  father  and 
mother  died  suddenly — within  a  year  of  each  other.  I 
had  to  make  my  way  alone ;  earn  my  living.  I  went  to 
Boston.  Always  I  found  myself  a  wallflower,  a  spectator, 
while  others  played  and  enjjbyed.  I  wanted  to  play  and 
enjoy  also.  But  I'd  been  taught  to  believe  that  'nice  girls' 
didn't  do  anything  but  sit  and  fold  their  hands.  Then, 
praise  God,  a  man  came  and  took  me  up  into  an  exceeding 
high  mountain." 

"Captain  Theddon?" 

"No.  Not  Captain  Theddon!  He  was  a  man  from 
Virginia.  He  loved  me  dearly.  For  a  year  I  was  almost 
too  happy  to  move.  It  seemed  the  world  about  me  was  made 
of  frail  glass  —  pink  glass.  If  I  moved  it  would  crash. 
This  man  took  me  in  hand,  I  say.  In  a  year  he  undid  most 
of  my  vicious  training.  He  opened  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth  by  getting  me  to  accept  exactly  what  I  told  you 
a  moment  ago  —  to  be  a  participant  in  everything  instead  of 
a  spectator.  He  taught  me  the  simple  truth  that  shyness 
is  only  the  fear  of  ridicule  —  but  that  people  who  ridicule 
are  either  deficient  themselves  or  coarsely  conceited.  There 
fore  they  are  not  deserving  of  attention  at  all.  And  under 
his  tutelage,  for  two  short  years  I  was  deliriously  happy!" 

"Why   didn't  you  marry  him,  mother   dear?" 

"He  had  to  go  to  California  —  because  of  tuberculosis. 
He  died  out  there." 

The  girl  was  shocked.     Then  she  observed  softly: 

"I  should  have  thought  it  would  have  broken  you  too, 
mother  dear." 

"It  would  have  broken  me,  Madelaine,  if  Hugh  hadn't 


8o  THE  FOG 

taught  me,  along  with  the  rest,  to  consider  every  experience 
that  came  to  me  as  sent  for  some  grand  and  constructive 
purpose.  I  think  he  knew  he  was  going  to  die  before  he 
left  me.  Just  a  few  moments  before  he  boarded  his  train 
he  said,  "The  greatest  experience  of  your  life,  dear  girl, 
lies  just  ahead.  If  you  fail  to  apply  it  constructively,  you're 
not  worthy  of  it  at  all.'  Poor  me!  I  thought  he  meant 
our  marriage  if  he  recovered.  He  meant  his  own  death  — 
my  loss  of  him.  It  came  to  me  —  his  last  message  —  after 
he  was  only  a  memory.  It  was  hard  to  see  anything  con 
structive  in  that  horrible  disappointment.  But  I  did.  I 
plunged  into  life,  making  it  give  me  something  to  out 
weigh  my  grief.  I  don't  mean  I  became  frivolous  —  I  simply 
refused  to  be  morbid  —  for  Hugh's  sake  at  first  —  then  for 
the  sake  of  Life  itself.  I  saw  that  my  loss  had  been  sent 
to  deepen  my  life,  to  make  me  sensitive  to  others  who  had 
suffered.  I  found  out  how  richly  one  may  live,  whether 
it  be  in  sunshine  or  in  mist.  And  that  philosophy  now  I 
want  to  pass  along  to  you.  To  live,  dear  girl,  just  to  live 
—  for  its  own  sweet  sake  —  is  a  blessed,  blessed  privilege. 
But  alas,  so  few  know  how  to  live.  They  go  on  the  'I 
mustn't'  policy,  never  stopping  to  reason  out  why.  They 
merely  exist  —  even  in  the  simplest  of  life's  roles.  And  I 
don't  want  you  to  merely  exist,  Madelaine.  I  want  you 
to  get  from  beautiful  Life  every  last  fleck  of  sunshine  and 
shadow.  There's  no  sorrow  that  can  come  to  you,  dear, 
that  you  can't  make  beautiful.  There's  no  joy  or  happiness 
that  you  can't  make  injurious  and  vicious.  Never  mind 
what  your  role  in  life  is  to  be,  dear,  whether  you  become 
a  great  artist  or  the  unsung  wife  of  an  unsung  man,  what 
ever  your  hands  find  to  do,  don't  only  'do  it  with  all  your 
might'  but  find  some  way  to  make  it  interesting.  A  sod 
hut  on  a  prairie  can  be  made  as  interesting  as  a  gallery  of 
Italian  art  —  if  you  only  look  at  it  in  the  right  light,  making 
the  utmost  of  yourself  and  materials.  But  to  do  that,  you 
must  be  a  part  of  those  materials  yourself  —  always  a  partici 
pant,  sure  of  yourself,  positive,  constructive,  analytical, 
intense,  living  each  day  to  every  one  of  the  eighty-six  thou 
sand,  four  hundred  seconds  it  contains." 

Gracia  Theddon  not  only  preached  this  sort  of  thing ;  she 
lived  it  —  every  one  of  the  day's  eighty-six  thousand,  four 
hundred  seconds  —  herself.  Her  home,  her  social  life,  her 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  81 

dress,  her  face,  —  she  had  paid  a  price  for  everything  that 
she  was  and  owned.  And  having  paid  the  price,  she  saw 
that  she  had  her  "Value  Received." 


ii 

During  these  years,  Madelaine  had  met  very  few  of 
Gracia  Theddon's  relatives.  But  the  July  after  her  gradua 
tion  from  grammar  school,  young  Gordon  Ruggles,  son 
of  Captain  Theddon's  sister,  alighted  from  the  Albany 
train,  gave  a  red-cap  a  half-dollar  to  carry  his  portmanteau 
two  hundred  feet,  had  a  taxi  convey  him  where  a  street 
car  would  have  served  at  one-twentieth  the  expense  and 
entered  his  aunt's  home  without  ringing  the  bell. 

Young  Ruggles  was  past  sixteen,  hard  as  nails,  tough 
as  a  young  owl  and  twice  as  wise,  could  lick  his  weight 
in  wounded  wildcats  and  circle  the  globe  alone.  One  front 
tooth  grew  over  another  on  his  upper  jaw,  and  he  had  a 
vicious  right  eye.  When  he  wanted  a  thing,  he  went  and 
took  it.  If  his  father  didn't  care  to  pay  the  bill,  the  bill 
simply  went  unpaid.  Most  spoiled  rich  boys  are  weaklings 
and  cowards.  Gordon  loved  a  fight  as  a  girl  loves  silk. 

Through  the  Theddoh  household  he  went  therefore,  open 
ing  doors  and  slamming  them,  throwing  his  cap  on  a  table 
so  carelessly  it  toppled  and  smashed  a  fancy  vase,  mount 
ing  the  stairs  with  a  curse  and  banging  into  his  aunt's 
room  like  a  motion-picture  villain  looking  for  the  escaped 
heroine. 

On  the  north  side  of  his  aunt's  chamber  he  beheld  the 
door  into  the  maid's  room,  —  at  least  it  had  been  the  maid's 
room  when  last  he  had  visited  the  house.  Gordon  crossed 
over,  yanked  open  the  door,  thrust  in  his  head  and  shoulders 
and  cried  hoarsely: 

"Suffering  Arabella!" 

Facing  him  was  a  girl  at  her  toilet — twelve,  fourteen, 
sixteen  years  —  how  old  was  she?  Like  a  startled  fawn, 
rigid  with  alarm,  she  backed  against  the  foot  of  her  bed 
and  stopped  the  young  Goth  with  her  eyes. 

Frock  and  pumps  had  yet  to  be  negotiated.  The  former 
she  caught  up  now  and  crumpled  against  her  alabaster 
throat.  So  held,  it  only  reached  her  knees.  Her  perfect 


82  THE  FOG 

legs  were  classic  in  silken  hosiery,  so  slender  it  appeared  a 
mystery  how  those  ankles  supported  the  weight. 

It  was  her  head  and  her  face,  however,  that  had  halted 
the  intruder  so  abruptly.  Her  dark  hair  fluffed  back  from 
her  forehead  in  a  wavy  pompadour.  It  was  gathered  with 
a  small  jeweled  barrette  at  the  back  and  long  curls  fell  over 
an  undraped  shoulder,  only  accentuating  the  perfection  of 
flesh.  Her  eyes  blazed  with  the  indignity  of  this  intrusion. 
Her  nostrils  quivered. 

"Gawd,  what  a  filly !"  was  all  the  young  worldly  wiseman 
could  articulate. 

"Who  are  you?    And  how  dare  you  come  in  here  now?" 

"And  who  are  you  ?"  returned  Gordon. 

"I'm  Madelaine  Theddon  — Mrs.  Theddon's  daughter!" 

The  lid  of  the  boy's  bad  eye  flopped  twice. 

"You're  who?"  he  cried,  amazed. 

"I'm  Mrs.  Theddon's  daughter,  I  told  you " 

"Tell  that  to  the  Marines!     Aunt  Gracia  hasn't  got  a 

daughter.     Unless "     Being  naturally  low-minded,  the 

alternative  occurred  to  him  promptly. 

"But  I  am,  I  tell  you !  She  adopted  me  —  four  years  ago. 
And  please  go  out  till  I'm  dressed." 

Gordon  laughed  coarsely  and  licked  his  lips. 

"Adopted  you,  did  she?  That's  a  good  one.  She  never 
told  us  about  it." 

"That's  her  business,  isn't  it  ?  I  don't  know  as  there  was 
any  reason  why  she  was  required  to  do  so,  whoever  you  are. 
But  if  you  possess  any  traits  of  a  gentleman  you'll  leave  my 
room  until  I'm  dressed." 

"Oh,  don't  be  catty.  I'm  her  nephew,  Gord,  and  you 
aren't  the  first  dame  I've  ever  seen  half -dressed." 

"I  might  gather  as  much  from  your  conduct !" 

"Been  knocking  me,  has  she?  Well,  just  for  that,  I'll 
get  out  when  I  please." 

"I  shall  call  the  servants !" 

"Go  ahead;  I  can  lick  any  darned  fathead  Aunt  Gracia's 
got  around  here.  But  I  hope  you  have  better  luck  than  I 
did.  I  hunted  all  over  the  place." 

The  girl  was  close  to  tears.  She  looked  around  desperately. 
Then  with  a  flash  of  white  she  was  gone  —  into  the  bath 
room.  The  intervening  door  was  fastened  swiftly. 

"A  peach!"  whistled  the  boy.     He  moved  back  into  the 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  83 

larger  chamber.  "Now  I  wonder  where  did  Gracia  pick 
her  up  ?  She's  a  pippin !  A  dream !  A  cuckoo !  A  lulu  — 
Whew!" 

in 

Gracia  Theddon  came  into  the  room,  —  trailed  in,  a  long 
string  of  jade  beads  clicking  against  her  knees.  She 
stopped. 

"Where  did  you  come  from?"  she  blazed. 

"Johnsville !    They  kicked  me  out !" 

"You  mean  you've  been  expelled?" 

"Call  it  that  if  you  want." 

"What  for?" 

"Oh,  a  bunch  of  us  took  Dutch  leave  one  night  and  the 
girl  that  was  with  us  squealed.  They  said  I  was  respon 
sible." 

"Which  you  probably  were !" 

"Well,  what  of  it  ?  They  kicked  me  out,  anyhow.  I  might 
as  well  be  blamed  as  not." 

"But  why  have  you  come  here?" 

"Haven't  got  any  other  place  to  go,  have  I?  —  with  the 
mater  and  governor  across." 

"Meaning  you've  spent  all  your  money?" 

"I  guess  so." 

"Take  your  feet  off  that  polished  chair!  What  do  you 
think  I'm  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"Make  me  financial  once  more  —  or  lemme  stay  here  till 
the  governor  gets  back.  I'd  just  as  soon  stay,"  he  grinned 
with  a  glance  at  Madelaine's  door. 

"Oh,  you  had?    Well,  I'd  as  soon  you  had  not!" 

"Yeah  —  on  account  of  what  you  got  in  the  bathroom, 
what?" 

"You  unspeakable  young  vulgarian!  How  do  you 
know " 

"Oh,  I  busted  in  there,  looking  for  your  maid.  But  you 
don't  need  to  be  sore !  She's  all  right,  leave  it  to  me !  Great 
taste  you  got,  Aunt  Grace.  I  couldn't  'a'  picked  a  prettier 
one  myself !" 

If  Gracia  Theddon  had  been  less  a  lady  she  would  have 
flown  into  a  rage.  Instead  she  returned  calmly : 

"Young    man,    your    insinuations    are    an    insult.      And 


84  THE  FOG 

whether  Madelaine  happens  to  be  here  or  not,  I  don't  want 
you  around  my  house." 

"All  right,  give  me  some  kale  and  I'll  blow." 

"I'll  give  you  nothing." 

"But  look  it,  Aunt  Gracia,  I've  got  to  have  a  place  to 
sleep  and  eat,  haven't  I?  And  the  governor '11  be  sore  if 
he  comes  back  and  knows  I  asked  you  for  dough  and  you 
gave  me  the  icy  stare." 

Biting  her  lip,  the  woman  trailed  across  the  room  and 
stood  by  the  window,  looking  out.  After  all,  the  boy's  father 
would  reimburse  her  and  it  was  better  than  having  him  re 
main  under  the  same  roof  with  Madelaine. 

"How  much  do  you  want?"  she  demanded. 

"Oh,  a  thousand  will  do!  Till  I  need  more."  And  the 
youngster  laughed. 

"A  thousand  dollars!     Are  you  crazy?" 

"No,  but  if  I  set  the  figure  lower  you'd  fork  it  across. 
And  I'd  rather  stick  around." 

Gracia  sat  down  at  her  desk,  wrote  a  check  and  ripped 
it  from  the  check  book.  ^ 

"Now  get  out!"  she  ordered. 

The  boy's  bad  eyelid  flopped  again. 

"Until  it's  gone,  Aunt  Grace,"  he  chaffed.    "Happy  days !" 

"If  I  had  my  way,  young  man,  you'd  land  in  reform  school. 
Get  out!" 

Gracia  Theddon  whirled,  however,  at  sound  of  a  voice 
from  the  door. 

"You're  not  sending  him  away  on  my  account,  are  you, 
mother  dear?  I'm  sure  he  didn't  mean  anything.  He 
couldn't  find  you  and  was  looking  for  the  maid.  And  be 
sides,  I  should  have  locked  my  door." 

"You  should  have  done  nothing  of  the  sort,"  Mrs.  Thed 
don  replied  angrily.  "He  had  no  right  to  enter  a  girl's 
room " 

"Introduce  us,  Aunt  Grace.  I  thought  I'd  met  the 
family." 

Gracia  Theddon  waged  a  quick  battle  with  her  temper. 

She  introduced  the  two,  —  stiffly. 

"I'm  sorry  I  was  rude,"  the  boy  said  awkwardly  a  moment 
later.  "But,  you  see,  everybody  goes  on  the  idea  that  I'm  a 
roughneck  and  a  low-brow  and  I  —  I  —  well,  I've  got  to 
live  up  to  my  reputation."  He  shot  a  challenge  at  his  aunt. 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  85 

"I  won't  think  you  a  roughneck  or  low-brow  —  whatever 
those  things  mean,"  Madelaine  returned.  "And  I'm  sure  we 
can  be  friends.  You're  not  sending  him  away,  mother  dear, 
before  I've  even  a  chance  to  get  acquainted  with  the  only 
cousin  I  have?" 

"He's  not  your  cousin "  Gracia  began  angrily.  She 

meant  to  infer  that  Gordon  and  Madelaine  had  nothing  in 
common  in  the  matter  of  breeding  or  character.  If  she  had 
not  paused,  she  could  have  covered  the  break  and  it  might 
not  have  been  noticed.  But  she  did  pause  and  the  Fairy 
Foundling  flamed  scarlet.  For  it  taunted  her  with  the  old, 
old  ache  that  after  all  she  was  a  nobody,  living  on  the 
Theddon  generosity  —  a  child  from  an  orphanage  —  or  one 
who  had  been  bought  like  a  pretty  slave  for  a  thousand  dol 
lars  to  ameliorate  an  affluent  woman's  loneliness. 

"Then  we'll  try  to  play  the  game  that  we  are  cousins," 
Madelaine  contended.  "I'm  sure  you've  been  mistaken  about 
Gordon.  It  isn't  fair  to  believe  people  are  some  things  until 
there's  nothing  left  for  them  to  do  but  become  those  things 

—  is  it?" 

Gordon  and  his  aunt  both  sensed  the  defense  in  the  girl's 
argument.  Gordon  thought  he  had  won  in  spite  of  his  aunt, 
already.  The  girl's  fine  grain  was  lost  on  him  entirely.  But 
not  on  the  woman.  She  felt  that  the  Fairy  Foundling  would 
champion  and  mother  the  most  foul-souled  criminal  that  ever 
drew  breath.  It  was  her  heritage  and  her  danger. 

"Gordon,"  the  woman  propounded  in  an  iron  voice,  "my 
daughter  is  of  different  caliber  than  the  girls  you've  been 
meeting,  whether  you've  been  in  military  school  or  not. 
So  you  keep  in  mind  that  you're  a  young  gentleman  or  —  or 

—  God  help  you !" 

The  boy  pulled  a  daffodil  from  a  near-by  bowl  and  tore  it 
to  pieces  angrily. 

"I  guess  I  know  class  when  I  see  it,"  he  grumbled. 

This  was  so  raw  and  rude  that  even  Madelaine  paled.  But 
she  recovered  herself  and  laughed. 

"You  know  what  I  said  about  some  of  the  children  when 
they  first  came  to  the  Home,  mother  dear  ?  Well  —  let's  all 
try  —  to  get  —  better  acquainted." 


86  THE  FOG 


IV 

At  five  o'clock  the  following  afternoon,  while  Madelaine 
was  dressing  for  dinner,  Gracia  entered  her  room  and  passed 
through  to  her  daughter's.  She  dismissed  the  maid  and 
closed  the  door. 

"I've  just  had  an  answer  to  my  cable,"  she  announced. 
"Amos  and  Margaret  are  not  coming  back  until  spring. 
Amos  is  asking  as  a  special  favor  that  I  keep  Gordon  here 
and  look  after  him  until  he  gets  back  and  can  deal  with 
him." 

"But  what  of  that,  mother?    I'm  sure " 

"I'm  sure  that  young  barbarian  will  succeed  in  ingratiating 
himself  into  your  sympathies,  Madelaine.  Make  you  believe 
he's  not  the  thing  he  emphatically  is.  I  can't  very  well  deny 
Margaret's  boy  the  shelter  of  my  home.  But  I  can  and  shall 
deny  him  propinquity  with  my  daughter.  Madelaine,  please 
take  it  kindly  and  believe  it  hurts  me  far  more  than  it  does 
yourself.  But  I'm  going  to  send  you  away  —  to  school." 

It  was  the  girl's  turn  to  struggle  with  self  for  a  moment. 
Then  in  even  voice  she  replied  quietly : 

"Of  course,  I'll  do  whatever  pleases  you,  mother  dear. 
For  after  all,  you  know,  I'm  indebted  to  you  more  than  I 
can  ever  repay." 

Mrs.  Theddon  uttered  a  little  cry. 

"No,  no!  Madelaine!  Don't  take  it  that  way!  You're 
not  a  helpless  mercenary  —  you  weren't  bought " 

She  stopped.  The  misery  on  the  girl's  face  was  unmis 
takable. 

"Wasn't  I,  mother  dear  ?  I  thought  I  was  —  for  a  thou 
sand  dollars " 

"Madelaine!    How  did  you  know ?    Who  told  you ?" 

"I  happened  to  be  hiding,  unintentionally,  in  Miss  How- 
land's  office  that  day.  I  heard  everything.  And  there's  not 
been  one  day  since,  when  I've  heard  you  tear  a  check  from 
your  check  book,  but  what  I've  remembered  why  and  how 
I'm  —  here !  Why  did  you  do  it  ?  Oh,  mother  dear  ?  Why 
did  you?" 

"My  God!"  cried  the  woman.  "Madelaine,  I  never 
dreamed  you  knew !  Or  if  you  did,  I  thought  you  too  little 
for  it  to  make  any  difference.  Sometimes  I've  wondered  if 


BENDING  THE  TWIG  87 

you're  not  really  a  woman  even  older  and  wiser  than  myself 

—  merely  using  a  young  girl's  body." 

"Why  did  you,  mother  dear?  You  really  didn't  have  to 
do  it!" 

"And  has  that  been  bothering  you,  dear  ?" 

"Ever  since  the  day  I  came!" 

The  woman's  face  and  posture  remained  wooden  for  a 
moment.  Then  she  relaxed. 

"You  poor  dear,  parentless  lamb !  Don't  you  know  — 
don't  you  understand  —  can't  you  see  why  ?  I  did  it  because 
of  my  love !" 

"Your  love !" 

"Exactly.  Maybe  I've  been  trained  and  molded  these 
last  few  years,  Madelaine,  to  think  of  value  as  money.  I 
can't  help  that.  A  thousand  people  would  have  termed  my 
payment  to  the  Howland  woman  absurd  and  ridiculous.  Of 
course  it  was.  And  yet  I  had  a  purpose  in  it.  Dear  heart 

—  I  wanted  to  feel  you  had  cost  me  something.     Some 
thing  I  had  paid  for  so  I  had  the  right  to  bona  fide  owner 
ship  !" 

The  girl's  calm  eyes  searched  the  woman's  face.  They 
read  the  truth. 

"Cost  you  something?"  she  exclaimed. 

"I  couldn't  go  through  the  pain  of  giving  you  birth,  dear 
girl.  Yet  I  felt  myself  cheapening  you  and  cheapening  my 
self  to  get  you  for  nothing.  I  wanted  to  pay  —  pay  some 
thing  ridiculous  —  and  I  did !"  The  woman's  voice  cracked. 
"It  wasn't  the  Howland  person  getting  money  to  which  she 
had  no  right  —  it  was  my  parting  with  it  that  counted ! 
Can't  you  understand?" 

"You  might  have  given  it  to  the  Orphanage,  instead  of 
Miss  Howland  who  really  didn't " 

"Child,  child !  You'll  never  know  how  much  I  have  given 
to  the  Orphanage  since  you  arrived  to  make  my  life  worth 
while!" 


"Mother,"  said  the  girl  after  a  time,  "tell  me  why  you 
really  want  me  to  go  away?  Why  is  it  you  don't  want  me 
around  where  Gordon  is  ?  What's  the  matter  with  him  ?" 

"I  said  he  was  a  'rotter.'    That's  enough !" 


88  THE  FOG 

"But  what  do  you  mean  by  a  'rotter'?  What  especially 
could  he  do  by  just  remaining  here?" 

Gracia  Theddon  bit  her  lip. 

"Don't  you  know  how  a  bad  boy  could  compromise  a  girl 
or  woman  if  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  do  it?" 

"Compromise  her?    Just  what  do  you  mean?" 

Mrs.  Theddon  stood  looking  out  of  the  window  for  a 
time. 

"Sit  down,  Madge,"  she  directed,  after  decision  showed 
grimly  on  her  strong  face.  "I'm  going  to  tell  you  a  lot  of 
things  I  wish  that  my  mother  had  told  me,  even  when  I  was 
as  young  as  yourself." 

The  room  grew  dark  as  they  sat  there.  The  girl  had 
drawn  a  chair  to  the  window  and  as  the  mother  finished,  she 
remained  for  a  long  time  with  her  elbows  on  the  sill,  her 
hands  cupped  about  her  face,  staring  down  at  the  river  and 
the  serried  lights  across  the  South  End  Bridge. 

"I'm  glad  you've  told  me,"  she  said  at  last.  "I've  always 
wanted  to  know  but  never  dared  ask." 

Gracia  Theddon  arose  and  snapped  on  the  lights. 


VI 

A  week  later  Gordon  Ruggles  accosted  his  aunt  in  the 
garden. 

"Look  here,  Aunt  Gracie,  what  have  you  done  with  our 
little  Bird  of  Paradise?"  he  demanded  angrily. 

"Bird  of  Paradise!  Madelaine  left  here  night  before  last 
for  boarding-school.  But  what  school  it  is,  or  where  it  is, 
you'll  never  learn  —  if  I  can  help  it !" 

"Hid  her  away  from  me,  eh  ?" 

"Speaking  bluntly,  precisely  that!     For  a  time  at  least." 

"All  right,  Aunt  Gracia!  If  you  want  to  make  it  per 
sonal,  I  accept  the  challenge.  We'll  see  who  gets  Madelaine 
in  the  end  —  you  or  I.  Only  be  a  good  sport  if  you  lose, 
Aunt  Grace.  Be  a  good  sport  if  you  lose !" 

He  vaulted  the  hedge  and  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    SEX 


In  the  summer  of  1904,  the  Methodist  Sunday  school 
held  a  picnic  six  miles  up  the  river.  It  was  a  popular  place 
for  picnics,  —  a  glen  sloping  down  to  a  bathing  beach,  roofed 
with  tall  hemlocks  and  cut  off  from  the  road  by  a  level 
meadow  that  made  an  excellent  ball  field. 

Nathan's  father  had  no  grudge  against  picnics,  at  least 
Sunday-school  picnics.  But  he  did  resent  the  dangerous 
mingling  and  flagrant  propinquity  of  the  sexes  which  such 
affairs  occasioned.  So  Johnathan,  not  being  able  to  attend 
the  picnic  himself  and  "keep  an  eye"  on  the  boy,  prohibited 
him  the  outing  altogether.  Girls  —  slathers  of  girls  —  would 
attend  and  lead  Nat's  feet  into  paths  of  wickedness  and 
byways  that  were  vile.  Johnathan  had  to  go  to  Williams 
Falls  and  "see  about  a  position"  which  had  been  "offered" 
him  at  more  money  than  he  was  making  in  the  cobbler  shop. 
But  Nathan's  mother,  half  in  pique  at  John  and  half  in  dis 
tressed  mother-love  at  the  bitterness  of  her  boy's  disappoint 
ment,  told  him  to  go  ahead  and  enjoy  the  picnic  and  if  his 
father  said  anything  on  his  return,  she  would  pay  the  piper. 

Bernie  Gridley's  father  cared  nothing  about  picnics,  even 
though  he  was  a  deacon  in  the  church.  The  Duchess  ex 
pected  to  attend  merely  to  chaperone  Bernice.  But  at  the 
last  moment  the  8:10  train  pulled  into  the  Paris  station  with 
Gridley  relatives.  So  the  Duchess  had  to  consign  Bernice- 
Theresa  to  the  watchful  care  of  a  much  harassed  and  over 
worked  Sunday-school  teacher  who  later  had  a  beau  herself. 
Nathan  and  the  little  Gridley  girl  became  babes  in  the  wood. 
They  needed  no  encouragement  to  make  the  most  of  their 
opportunity. 

It  was  one  of  those  perfect  August  days  of  which  youne 
men  write  sonnets  and  older  men  compose  symphonies.  The 


90  THE  FOG 

sky  gave  no  suggestion  of  the  thunderstorm  which  was  to 
come  at  three  o'clock,  interrupt  the  ball  game,  send  the 
picnickers  scurrying  to  cover  and  leave  the  world  washed 
afterward  in  moist  and  golden  glory. 

There  is  small  space  here  for  a  detailed  account  of  that 
day's  program,  the  sports  or  the  luncheon  or  the  minor 
mishaps  or  the  shower  or  the  return  homeward  afterward 
by  moonlight.  Only  a  brief  record  of  a  tryst  which  Nathan 
and  I  kept  with  two  little  girls  off  in  leafy  woods. 

A  path  led  from  the  grove  over  the  hill  to  the  northward. 
Knee-high  with  vagrant  grass,  bordered  by  white  birches, 
poplars  and  brambles,  it  wound  into  the  thickest,  quietest  part 
of  that  forest  which  once  stretched  from  the  Paris  town 
line  to  Center  Wickford.  We  had  not  been  in  the  grove 
an  hour  before  Nathan  came  dodging  excitedly  through  the 
crowd.  He  caught  my  arm  and  drew  me  aside. 

"I've  seen  Bernie  and  Elinore !"  he  cried  feverishly,  Bernie 
being  about  all  the  picnic  meant  for  him,  anyhow.  "Her 
Ma  couldn't  come  and  she's  all  alone.  She  says  let's  go  way 
off  up  the  woods  and  eat  our  dinners  together,  just  us  four ! 
Oh,  gee,  Billy,  what  a  chance  —  what  a  chance !" 

"Chance  for  what?"  I  demanded. 

My  friend  was  crestfallen. 

"Why  —  why  —  to  Just  be  with  'em  all  day  —  and  per 
haps  we  can  kiss  'em !"  He  added  this  last  in  a 

whisper. 

"Oh,  hake!  I  got  sumpin'  on  my  mind  besides  always 
kissin'  girls.  I  wanner  see  the  sports  and  try  for  a  prize!" 
But  he  persuaded  me. 

Nathan  carried  his  luncheon  under  his  arm  in  a  paper. 
Already  it  was  misshapen  and  greasy  with  handling.  Some 
boys  had  pushed  it  from  his  grasp  and  used  it  as  a  football. 
It  consisted  of  three  very  fatty  doughnuts  and  some  thick 
slices  of  soggy,  indigestible  oatmeal  bread  with  equally  in 
digestible  chunks  of  hard  cheese  between  them.  This  he 
proposed  to  open  in  front  of  Bernie.  It  made  me  nerv 
ous. 

Shortly  before  twelve  o'clock,  therefore,  we  slipped  away 
from  the  prosaic  rabble  and  followed  two  bareheaded,  be- 
ribboned  coquettes  up  the  woods  road.  And  by  processes 
and  maneuvers  which  would  only  be  recognizable  by  boys, 
Nathan  ultimately  found  himself  carrying  Bernie's  dainty 


THE  SEX  91 

lunch  basket  and  I  had  become  the  personal  knight  and  escort 
of  the  Carver  gir!. 

Elinore  and  I  loitered  behind,  of  course  with  deliberation 
and  premeditation,  and  Bernie  and  Nathan  disappeared  over 
the  top  of  the  hill.  And  we  saw  not  one  another  again  until 
the  day  was  far  spent  and  we  were  forced  by  sunset  to 
come  forth  from  Avalon. 

The  Gridley  girl  affected  to  be  "mad"  a  goodly  portion 
of  that  setting-out  and  had  to  be  coddled  and  entreated  and 
coaxed  persistently  to  tell  the  cause  of  her  distemper.  By 
the  time  it  had  been  negotiated,  restraint  and  bash  fulness 
had  disappeared.  Thereupon  the  Gridley  girl  exercised  the 
prerogatives  of  Eve's  daughters  since  the  flood,  called  upon 
the  Forge  boy  to  fetch  and  carry,  to  suffer  her  idiosyncrasies 
and  foibles,  to  become  deliriously  happy  or  excruciatingly 
miserable  as  she  persisted  in  references  to  a  future  in  which 
the  Forge  boy  did  or  did  not  have  a  part.  And  so  in  due 
course  they  came  to  a  far  woodland  brook  that  trickled 
musically  over  mossy  stones.  The  pines  grew  silent  and 
lofty  here.  The  banks  were  strewn  with  needles.  A  trout 
pool  milled  with  the  sluggishness  of  deep  water  a  few 
yards  beyond  an  overhanging  bowlder.  The  Gridley  girl 
at  once  commented  upon  its  excellence  as  a  place  in  which 
to  lunch.  "It's  so  awful  private"  was  the  way  she  put  it. 
So  they  sat  down.  And  the  water  babbled  past  them  into 
eternity. 

What  mattered  it  that  the  Forge  boy's  hair  curled  long 
and  uncut  behind  his  ears;  that  he  wore  a  suit  his  father 
had  shined  by  prior  use  to  waxen  smoothness ;  that  his  face 
still  retained  at  least  twelve  thousand  of  the  original  thirty 
thousand  freckles ;  that  his  collar  was  wrinkled  and  his  shoes 
were  dusty  ?  The  Poet  lay  at  the  feet  of  his  Inspiration  and 
all  the  world  was  fair. 

What  mattered  it  also  that  their  talk  was  of  silly  nothings 
and  what  they  spoke  or  did  was  forgotten  almost  as  soon 
as  said  or  done?  The  boy  had  a  girl  of  topaz  eyes  off  alone 
in  leafy  woods  and  all  the  clocks  of  time  ran  down. 

ii 

"I'm  sorry  I  tried  to  kiss  you  that  night  in  the  vestry," 
the  boy  blurted  out.  He  was  lying  on  his  chest,  pegging 


92  THE  FOG 

his  knife  in  the  needles.  "I  felt  awful  when  your  father 
came  down  and  caught  me " 

The  girl  turned  her  face  in  amazement. 

"Kiss  me!"  she  said  faintly.  "Was  that  what  you  were 
up  to?" 

"Why,  yes!     Didn't  you  know?" 

"I  thought  you  were  fooling  —  that  you  jumped  out  to 
scare  me." 

Each  colored  dully  and  looked  away.  The  girl's  hat  was 
tossed  carelessly  at  one  side.  She  sat  with  her  chubby  arms 
clasped  about  her  knees. 

"Well,  I  was  tryin',"  confessed  Nathan  nervously. 

"But  for  the  land's  sake,  why  make  such  an  awful  job  of 
it?  You  almost  knocked  me  over." 

"There  wasn't  any  other  way  I  could  do  it.  My  folks 
never  let  me  go  to  kissin'  parties  or  things  like  that." 

Silence  ensued.  Then  the  precocious,  oversexed  little 
lady,  several  years  older  in  worldly  wisdom,  picked  apart  a 
nearby  star-flower  as  she  observed  coyly : 

"You  must  have  wanted  to  kiss  me  awful  bad  to  go  to  all 
that  trouble  to  do  it." 

"I  guess  I  did,  Bernie." 

"Then  why  don't  you  make  a  good  job  of  it  —  now? 
There's  no  one  here  to  stop  you,  is  there  ?" 

The  world  reeled.    Nathan  grew  giddy. 

"Aw,  go  on !"  he  cackled.    "You're  only  f oolin' !" 

"You  might  try  and  see  —  if  you  weren't  so  awfully  slow. 
That's  mostly  the  trouble  with  you,  Nathan  —  you're  slow !" 

"And  you  won't  be  mad ?" 

"What  if  I  am?  A  girl  always  loves  the  man  who  does 
things  he  wants,  whether  she  gets  mad  or  not."  Bernie  had 
secured  this  sort  of  thing  undoubtedly  from  her  mother's 
Pansy  Series. 

The  boy's  embarrassment  was  so  great  that  Bernice 
reached  her  hand  out  to  him,  a  soft,  damp  hand,  though  she 
looked  in  the  opposite  direction.  He  took  the  hand,  timidly 
at  first,  and  considered  it  as  Adam  considered  the  Apple. 

He  sat  up  beside  her  with  a  tremendous  yawn,  as  though 
he  had  lain  too  long  and  would  change  his  position.  As  for 
the  girl,  she  was  a  bit  frightened,  white-faced.  But  an 
atavism  in  her  blood  was  militant.  She  was  afraid  and  yet 
she  wasn't  afraid.  Any  woman  might  explain  it. 


THE  SEX  93 

"Aw,  can  I  really  kiss  you,  Bernie?" 

"I  said  so,  didn't  I?  And  if  you're  goin'  to  do  it,  for 
pity's  sake,  hurry  up !" 

He  leaned  over  and  kissed  her  on  a  peach-blown  cheek, 
searing  hot  and  zero  cold  by  turns.  And  no  more  chaste  kiss 
was  ever  given  The  Sex. 

But  Bernie  responded  in  a  way  that  Nathan  never  forgot. 
She  turned  her  face,  her  nostrils  breathed  into  his  own,  she 
kissed  him  —  once !  —  twice !  —  three  times !  —  heavy,  im 
pulsive,  lumberous  kisses,  squarely  on  his  mouth. 

The  Forge  boy  wanted  to  flee  or  wanted  to  cry;  he 
couldn't  quite  decide  which.  And  because  he  couldn't  decide 
he  stayed  where  he  was  and  waited  for  the  rocking  hysteria 
of  reaction  to  pass. 

"Let's  —  let's  —  do  it  again,"  the  girl  suggested,  as  the  boy 
sat  stiffly,  vaguely  remembering  something  about  the  eye 
of  God  being  upon  the  sinner  even  in  the  wilderness. 

They  went  through  that  ecstasy  again  and  again.  And 
astounding  to  record,  the  boy  suddenly  leaned  over  with 
his  face  on  his  arm. 

"Natie  Forge!  What  in  the  world  is  the  matter?"  cried 
the  stupefied  girl. 

"Dunno,"  said  the  lad.    "But  somehow  I  feel  we  oughtn't." 

"Well,  I  like  that !    Why  oughtn't  we  ?" 

"Dunno.    And  besides  —  it  hurts !" 

"Hurts?    What  hurts?" 

"Didn't  you  never  have  anything  happen  to  you  that  felt 
so  good  it  hurt?" 

"Well,  you  are  a  queer  one!" 

"I  know.  That's  what  Pa's  always  sayin' !  And  —  and  — 
everybody.  I  wish  I  wasn't!" 

"Here  I  let  you  kiss  me  as  much  as  you  want  and  you 
make  me  feel  as  if  I  was  doin'  sumpin'  wicked.  Nathan 
Forge  —  I'm  mad !  I  never  want  to  speak  to  you  again !" 

"Aw,  don't  be  mad,  Bernie.  I  didn't  mean  nothin'! 
Honest !" 

"Mother  always  said  you  were  a  yokel.  I  don't  know 
what  it  means  but  you  are  one,  all  right." 

Under  her  exasperation  the  Dresden  Doll  was  furious. 
She  had  lowered  the  lattice  of  her  modesty  and  knew  it 
perfectly.  A  crass  boy  was  vaguely  sounding  a  warning. 

The  quarrel  was  patched  up  somehow  and  they  ate  their 


94  THE  FOG 

lunch,  at  least  they  ate  Bernie's  lunch.  For  when  the 
Dresden  Doll  removed  the  cover  from  her  dainty  repast, 
an  awful  qualm  smote  Nathan  at  the  coarseness  of  his 
own.  With  the  subtlety  of  a  boy,  Nathan  managed  to 
push  his  package  off  the  bank  into  the  brook.  When  Bernie 
squealed  a  warning,  the  boy  fell  clumsily  in  his  efforts  to 
recover.  So  it  floated  away  downstream,  out  of  sight  and 
certainly  out  of  the  possibility  of  humiliating  mastication. 
Thereat  Nathan  affected  to  be  both  regretful  and  indiffer 
ent.  He  declared  he  could  subsist  till  supper  without 
luncheon.  The  Israelites  fasted  for  forty  days,  didn't  they, 
and  remained  alive?  But  Bernie  prevailed  upon  him  that 
she  had  enough  in  her  basket  for  half  a  dozen  boys.  So 
they  ate  their  meal  together,  eyes  averted. 

It  was  early  afternoon  when  the  girl  suddenly  cried: 

"Do  you  know  what  I'd  like  to  do?  For  once  in  my 
life  without  Mother  to  say  'Shocking!  Shocking!'  I'd  like 
to  paddle  in  this  brook  as  if  I  was  common,  and  like 
vulgar  children." 

"You  might  fall  in  and  get  your  clothes  wet  and  have 
to  go  home  all  drenched  and  slithery." 

"But  you  could  take  off  your  shoes  and  stockings  and  let 
me  hold  your  hand!" 

Nathan  demurred.  He  could  not  have  explained  just 
why.  But  the  girl  was  not  to  be  denied.  She  laughed  at 
his  discomfiture,  sat  down  near  the  water's  edge,  removed 
her  pretty  buckled  slippers,  peeled  off  her  lisle  stockings, 
rolled  up  her  underclothing.  Then  she  waded  —  timidly  at 
first  —  out  into  the  brook,  squealing  with  delight.  And  she 
pulled  her  skirts  higher  and  higher.  Finally  she  had  them 
above  her  dimpled  knees. 

From  his  place  on  the  bank,  Nathan  watched  her  and  yet 
tried  not  to  watch  her.  Much  of  the  real  Bernice,  down 
underneath  her  mother's  affectation  and  snobbery,  was  re 
vealed  that  day  in  the  extravagance  of  her  kisses  and  the 
bold  display  of  her  limbs. 

Four  short  years  later  Bernice  Gridley  was  a  mother. 
So  it  was  more  than  a  child's  sexless  figure  displayed  to 
young  Nathan  that  day.  The  boy's  nerves  began  cutting 
strange  capers.  Across  forehead  and  chest  was  a  queer, 
constricted  feeling. 

The  girl  kicked  and  shrieked  and  played  in  the  water. 


THE  SEX  95 

She  called  upon  Nathan  to  follow.  But  the  perturbed 
boy,  discovering  for  the  first  time  that  his  physical  being 
was  a  thing  apart  from  himself,  tried  to  behave  indiffer 
ently,  interest  himself  in  something  else.  For  him  the  girl  — 
all  girls  —  changed  again  with  that  experience.  Bernice 
was  no  longer  a  fellow  human,  a  playmate,  even  some  one 
to  be  kissed  deliciously. 

Bernice  laughed  when  she  beheld  the  perturbation  she 
was  causing.  Secretly  she  exulted.  It  was  the  first  time 
she  had  been  privileged  to  thus  test  her  physical  charm 
maliciously. 

But  more  than  the  disclosure  of  the  Gridley  girl's  limbs 
was  in  store  for  Nathan  that  afternoon.  Bernice  splashed 
in  the  water  until  she  slipped  and  fell.  With  a  wild  scream 
and  a  tremendous  plunge,  she  went  down  and  for  a  sicken 
ing  moment  the  water  eddied  over  her. 

Nathan  was  in  the  brook  at  once.  He  clutched  at  Bernie's 
dress  before  she  could  be  carried  out  into  the  greater 
depth.  Unmindful  of  himself,  he  got  his  arms  beneath  her. 
With  the  panic-stricken  girl  gasping  and  choking,  he  lifted 
her  and  carried  her  back  to  shore. 

The  water  made  her  lacy  clothing  sinuous  about  her 
body. 

"I'm  wet  —  wet  —  wet  to  the  s-s-skin !"  she  chattered,  as 
she  tried  to  pull  her  sloppy  skirts  about  her  limbs  —  velvety 
limbs,  now  ruddy  with  the  shock  of  the  water.  "Oh,  what 
will  I  do  —  whatever  will  I  do  ?" 

"Guess  by  the  looks  of  the  sky,  both  of  us  is  goin'  to 
get  still  wetter  before  we  leave,"  Nathan  managed.  "We're 
goin'  to  have  a  nawful  shower.  Listen!" 

In  the  high  northwest  the  thunderheads  had  been  piled 
up.  A  few  moments  later  the  storm  broke.  Boy  and  girl 
were  immediately  soaked  to  the  last  inch  of  their  frightened, 
quivering  bodies.  That  thunderstorm  saved  Bernice  a  bad 
piece  of  explanation  when  she  finally  entered  the  home  of 
her  parents  that  evening. 

The  thunder  rattled  and  clacked  furiously  about  the 
heavens.  The  great  drops  of  rain  pelted  the  forest  foliage 
and  surface  of  the  brook  like  bullets.  And  huddled  side  by 
side  under  a  tree,  Nathan  and  Bernie  drew  close  together 
and  covered  their  heads  as  best  they  could  with  Nathan's 
coat. 


96  THE  FOG 

The  girl  gripped  the  boy  hysterically  when  the  thunder 
bowled  loudest.  The  boy  was  badly  frightened  himself 
but  he  strove  to  comfort  her.  And  through  it  all  he  sensed 
her  soft,  vibrant,  rain-soaked  body  and  the  abyss  of  sex 
opened  wider  and  wider. 

in 

The  storm  finally  ended,  the  clouds  parted,  the  thunder 
moved  off  muttering  to  the  southwest.  A  radiant  sun 
broke  through.  Bernice  seated  herself  in  its  invigorating 
warmth.  She  removed  the  bedraggled  ribbons  and  shook 
down  her  straw-colored  hair.  Barefooted  and  nude  of 
limb  still,  she  recovered  her  composure  and  began  to  make 
light  of  the  incident.  But  Nathan  was  thoughtful. 

"You  act  as  if  you  were  afraid  of  me,"  Bernice  cried 
petulantly. 

The  boy  sat  apart,  beating  a  stick  intermittently  on  the 
leaves. 

"Aw,  I  ain't  afraid,"  he  laughed  nervously,  there  being 
few  things  less  pitiful  than  a  boy  striving  to  affect  the 
sophistication  he  knows  he  lacks. 

"Then  what's  the  matter  with  you?  Have  I  done  any 
thing  'specially  wicked?" 

"No!    You  ain't  done  nothin'  wrong,  I  guess." 

But  they  stole  forth,  back  down  the  woods  road  as 
Adam  and  Eve  must  have  stolen  from  the  Garden. 

Just  before  they  emerged  into  the  clearing,  Bernice 
turned.  She  clutched  Nathan's  coat. 

"Don't  you  ever  tell  I  took  off  my  shoes  and  stockings !" 
she  commanded.  "Promise  me !  And  don't  you  dare  break 
your  promise!" 

The  boy  agreed  readily  enough. 

"And  now,  Nathan  Forge,"  she  said,  with  a  subtle  glance 
around,  "kiss  me!  Just  once  more.  For  the  last  time! 
A  good  one!" 

But  when  the  boy  complied,  his  face  burned.  In  the  kiss 
he  sensed  no  ecstasy. 

He  went  out  to  the  picnic  grounds  to  run  directly  into 
the  clutches  of  his  father. 

"Where  have  you  been  ?"  Johnathan  demanded  ominously. 
The  whipcords  of  his  neck  stood  out  in  anger. 


THE  SEX  97 

"Nowhere,"  whimpered  Nathan.  "Just  over  in  the 
woods." 

"I'm  told  you've  been  missing  all  day." 

The  boy's  face  held  the  story. 

"Have  you  been  alone?" 

"N-N-No!" 

"Who's  been  with  you  ?" 

"Billy !" 

"And  who  else?" 

The  boy  hesitated.  It  was  hard  to  lie.  But  his  little 
sister  piped  up  shrilly: 

"Bernie  Gridley  and  Elinore  Carver's  been  with  'em! 
I  seen  'em  go !" 

"Is  this  so?"  demanded  Johnathan. 

"Yes,"  confessed  the  boy  boldly. 

"You've  been  —  off  in  the  woods  —  with  a  girl  —  all 
day?" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"In  spite  of  all  that  I've  warned  you?" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

Johnathan  reached  out  and  lifted  his  terror-paralyzed 
son  in  his  wrath. 

"You  march  home!"  he  commanded.  "We'll  see  about 
this !  What  are  you  doing  here  at  the  picnic,  anyhow,  when 
I  said  you  couldn't  come?" 

"Ma  said  I  could." 

"But  what  did  I  say  to  you?" 

"You  said  —  I  couldn't." 

"Then  you  deliberately  disobeyed  there,  also?" 

"But  Ma  said " 

"Never  mind  what  your  mother  said.  You  don't  do  what 
your  mother  says.  You  do  what  I  say!  March!" 

The  worst  part  of  that  whole  picnic-day  episode  wasn't 
the  humiliation  before  all  the  boys  and  girls  and  par 
ticularly  Bernie,  nor  the  thrashing  that  followed.  It  was 
that  his  mother  had  promised  immunity,  to  defend  him,  to 
"pay  the  piper"  and  did  not  keep  her  word.  • 

Johnathan  Forge  got  his  boy  home,  took  him  out  in  the 
wood-shed  and  ordered  him  to  strip  to  his  pelt.  Before 
the  flogging  began,  he  prolonged  the  terror  by  coddling  the 
weapon  of  assault  —  a  couple  of  feet  of  stiff  harness  tug  — 
talking  to  it,  explaining  to  it  how  he  had  told  his  boy  to 


98  THE  FOG 

stay  awaj  from  the  picnic  and  "his  boy"  had  disobeyed; 
how  he  had  been  told  to  always  keep  away  from  girls  and 
had  disobeyed  there  also.  Then  he  laid  it  on. 

Sordid  all  this  to  recount?  As  well  delineate  Johnathan 
thrashing  his  boy  around  the  calendar  and  be  done  with  it. 
But  it  was  a  matter  of  principle  with  Johnathan.  He  was 
responsible  for  his  boy's  soul  to  God.  The  Bible  said  so. 

Whack!     Whack!     Whack! 


IV 

Nathan  lay  on  his  bed  that  night  with  his  arms  behind  his 
head  and  stared  up  into  the  dark. 

Moment  by  moment  he  lived  that  galaxy  of  sylvan  love 
over.  Branded  as  with  searing  iron  into  his  brain  was 
the  picture  of  Bernice  Gridley  knee-deep  in  the  brook 
water,  or  as  he  had  laid  her  down  on  the  hemlock  needles 
when  he  had  subsequently  rescued  her. 

"I've  got  to  marry  her !  I've  got  to  marry  her  right  off," 
he  told  himself.  "Grandfather  Forge  married  at  sixteen, 
he  said  so ;  and  Grandma  Forge  was  only  fourteen.  That's 
only  two  years  older'n  me,  and  what's  two  years?  I'll  ask 
her!  I'll  ask  her  to-morrow." 

And  the  poor  young  ass  did. 

It  was  down  along  the  path  through  the  Haskell  meadow, 
—  the  "short  cut"  from  Matthews  Court  to  Windsor  Street. 
It  was  by  accident  he  encountered  the  girl  but  he  stopped 
her. 

"Marry  you !  Marry  you !"  she  choked.  "I  think  you're 
raving  crazy.  I'm  not  old  enough  to  marry  anybody.  Be 
sides,  I'm  mad  at  you,  anyhow !" 

"What  for,  Bernie?" 

"You  broke  your  promise!  You  tattled  about  me  going 
into  the  water." 

"I  did  not!" 

"You  did!!' 

"You  can't  prove  it!" 

"Well,  somebody  did  and  it  might  as  well  been  you! 
Besides,  last  night  I  dreamed  you  did  —  and  that  settles  it." 

"But  I  can't  help  what  you  dream!" 

"Well,  I'm  mad,  anyhow.    You  haven't  the  backbone  of 


THE  SEX  99 

a  fish!  You  let  your  father  jaw  you,  right  there  in  tight 
of  everybody." 

"Could  I  help  it?  He's  bigger'n  me.  And  besides,  he's 
my  father." 

"If  my  father  dared  to  jaw  me  like  that  in  front  of 
everybody  I'd  —  I'd  —  I'd  get  a  gun  and  I'd  shoot  him  dead ! 
I  told  you  that  before." 

"I  hate  him  as  much  as  I  love  you,  Bernie.  At  the  same 
time,  I  can't  kill  him." 

"Well,  you  wanted  to  know  why  I  won't  marry  you  and 
I'm  telling  you.  Besides,  who'd  marry  us?" 

"We  could  run  away,  Bernie.  I  could  tell  some  minister 
we're  older  than  we  are.  You  could  get  some  of  your 
mother's  long  dresses  perhaps  and  I'm  puttin'  on  long  pants 
next  week  anyhow " 

"And  who'd  support  us?" 

"I've  reached  man's  estate.  I'm  going  to  work  next 
week,  anyhow.  If  I've  reached  man's  estate  and  am  going 
to  work  and  earn  money,  I've  got  a  right  to  have  the  things 
a  man  has  —  a  wife,  for  instance !" 

"Where  are  you  going  to  work?" 

"In  —  in  —  your  father's  tannery.  And  if  I've  got  a  wife, 
maybe  my  father  will  let  me  have  my  own  money  for 
myself.  He'll  have  to!  The  law'd  make  him " 

"Well  of  all  things !  Nathan  Forge !  And  do  you  think 
I'd  marry  a  man  who  worked  in  a  smelly  tannery?" 

"Your  father  does !" 

"My  father  owns  it.  It's  different.  Now  I  know  you're 
crazy!  I  bet  your  father  hit  you  over  the  head  and  made 
you  crazy!  I've  heard  of  such  things.  And  if  you  don't 
get  out  of  my  way  I'm  going  to  scream!" 

"Bernie  —  don't  go  off  mad !    I  ain't  crazy,  Bernie " 

"When  I  get  married  it's  going  to  be  a  millionaire.  And 
he's  not  going  to  dress  like  a  tramp,  or  go  around  with 
freckles,  or  need  a  hair-cut,  or  be  so  slow  when  I  let  him 
kiss  me  he  makes  me  feel  I  was  doing  something  wicked." 

"Bernie  —  you  said  in  your  letters  you  1-1-loved  me !  You 
said " 

"Oh,  can't  you  take  a  joke?  That  was  just  for  fun, 
and  besides,  we  aren't  grown  up  so  it  didn't  mean  anything, 
anyhow !" 

"You  were  only  foolin'?" 


TOO  THE  FOG 

"Well,  I  didn't  suppose  you'd  take  it  serious  —  in  such 
a  foolish  way  as  this.     Why,  my  father  would  horsewhip 
you  if  he  even  dreamed  you'd  asked  such  a  thing." 
"Bernie —  you  aren't  —  you  aren't  —  playing  fair." 
"Well,  a  girl  doesn't  have  to  play  fair  —  if  she  doesn't 
want.     Anyhow,  you're  not  the  boy  I'd  marry  even  if  we 
were  grown  up.     You  aren't  handsome!     You're  nothing 
but  an  ordinary  little  freckle-faced  frump." 

"Then  why  —  did  you  let  —  me  kiss  you " 

"Oh,  just  because  I  liked  it.  And  even  so,  you  didn't 
care  enough  to  come  with  me  into  the  water  and  save  me 
from  getting  all  wet.  And  —  and  —  I  hate  you  and  I'm 
going  to  Rutland  to  spend  the  summer  next  week  and  then 
I'm  going  to  private  school  down  to  Mt.  Hadley  in  the  fall. 
My  mother  said  so.  She  heard  about  what  happened  at  the 
picnic.  She  said  I  wasn't  going  to  stay  around  Paris  and 
get  mixed  up  with  the  son  of  any  village  cobbler.  I'm  too 
high-class.  Now  you  get  out  of  my  way  or  I'll  yell  for 
help!" 

"You're  goin'  away  and  I'm  never  goin'  to  see  you  any 
more?" 

"I  am.    And  I'm  tickled  to  death  to  forget  you !" 
When  Nathan  could  see  through  his  misery,  the  girl  had 
vanished. 


The  following  Sunday,  tramping  out  on  the  Wick  ford 
road,  Nathan  beheld  a  two-seated  Concord  buggy  drawn 
by  a  well-lathered  horse  climbing  the  hill  toward  him. 

The  Dresden  Doll,  never  so  dainty,  or  frilled  or  furbe- 
lowed,  sat  in  the  front  seat  beside  a  fellow  whom  Nathan 
had  never  seen.  The  Carver  girl  with  another  young 
stranger  occupied  the  back  seat. 

Stopping  aghast,  Nathan  looked  directly  into  the  Gridley 
girl's  eye. 

She  did  not  see  him.  She  looked  through  and  beyond 
him.  There  was  no  recognition. 

But  after  the  rig  had  passed,  leaving  a  leg-weary,  dusty- 
shoed  boy  standing  in  his  heart-hunger  by  the  fragrant 
brambles,  one  of  the  quartette  passed  a  remark,  which  he 
knew  in  his  hot  shame  referred  to  himself. 


THE  SEX  101 

A  sneering  little  laugh  drifted  back  to  him.     The  rig 
reached  the  hilltop  and  passed  over  out  of  sight. 


VI 

That  night  Nathan  took  a  bundle  of  big  square  envelopes 
tied  with  a  red  ribbon,  Bernie's  letters,  and  put  them  where 
the  sight  could  no  longer  hurt  him.  He  hid  them  on  a 
beam  close  to  the  eaves  out  in  the  three-foot  attic  over  the 
Forge  ell.  Then  he  crawled  back  over  the  studding  and  but 
toned  the  low  door  that  led  to  that  windowless  garret  from 
his  bedroom.  That  button  also  fastened  a  door  on  a 
chamber  in  his  little  heart.  He  had  completed  his  first 
thumb-nail  cycle  with  The  Sex. 

His  cynical  observations  about  "girls,"  delivered  in  the 
family  circle,  gladdened  the  heart  of  his  father  and  made 
the  latter  feel  that  his  precepts  were  at  last  bearing  fruit, 
that  he  had  a  son  who  might  not  be  quite  so  incorrigible 
as  he  had  begun  to  fear. 

That  Christmas  he  gave  Nathan  five  dollars  and  reminded 
the  boy  of  his  paternal  generosity  all  through  the  balance 
of  the  year. 

But  the  five  dollars  meant  nothing  to  Nathan.  He  was 
compelled  to  deposit  it  in  the  Paris  Savings  Bank.  John- 
athan  "borrowed"  it  three  years  later  to  help  pay  a  grocery 
bill. 


CHAPTER  XI 

POET   IN    ^HOMESPUN 


Great  was  the  exasperation  among  the  local  school 
teachers  when  it  became  known  that  Nathan  was  not  going 
on  into  high  school  in  September. 

Cora  Hastings,  Nathan's  last  teacher  and  the  good  woman, 
by  the  way,  who  did  more  than  all  others  to  encourage  his 
literary  fluency  and  poetical  promise,  took  it  upon  her  sparse, 
capable  shoulders  to  wait  upon  the  boy's  father  and  "speak 
him  a  piece  of  her  mind." 

"Don't  you  know  your  boy  has  been  the  brightest  English 
scholar  in  the  whole  eight  grades  ?"  she  demanded  scathingly. 

"Well,"  retorted  Johnathan,  "just  what  is  it  your  busi 
ness?" 

"I've  been  his  teacher  and  I  know  what's  in  him.  Let 
alone  to  study  and  equip  himself,  Nathan  will  make  his 
mark  in  the  world.  Take  him  from  school  now,  and  all 
you  may  have  is  a  mere  working  man." 

"I'm  not  ashamed  of  having  him  a  working  man.  His 
folks  were  all  working  people.  Look  at  me!  No  airs 
to  us!" 

"Do  you  want  your  boy  to  turn  out  a  fool?" 

"Better  a  working  fool  than  an  educated  fool.  But  I'm 
not  afraid  of  his  bein'  a  fool.  Work  never  made  a  fool 
out  of  nobody." 

"Don't  you  want  him  to  be  a  success?" 

"If  he's  got  it  in  him  to  be  a  success  it'll  come  out  any 
how,  school  or  no  school.  If  he  hasn't,  schoolin'  '11  be 
wasted.  But  it  isn't  wholly  that.  I  need  his  money.  I 
don't  make  no  bones  abou"  saying  so.  I'm  a  poor  man, 
ma'am.  It's  about  time  the  boy  commenced  paying  me 
back  for  some  of  the  trouble  and  expense  he's  been  since 
he  was  born?" 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  103 

"Why  should  he?    He  didn't  ask  to  be  born!" 

Johnathan  dodged  that.  "I  had  to  work  at  his  age  and 
pay  back  my  father." 

"And  hasn't  the  memory  of  that  injustice  softened  you 
toward  you  own  son  ?" 

"Injustice?  What  injustice?  I  always  had  to  work.  I 
never  even  had  as  much  schoolin'  as  Nat  has  already. 
And  look  at  me!" 

"Yes,  look  at  you !  —  A  bigoted,  psalm-singing,  heart- 
hardened,  petulant-mouthed,  intolerable  old  hypocrite! 
There !" 

"What?    What's  that  you  say?" 

"You  heard  me !  You're  all  of  that  and  more.  And  the 
whole  town  knows  it.  You've  got  a  boy  as  rare  and  fine 
and  promising  as  you're  common  and  coarse  and  vulgar. 
And  you're  deliberately  wrecking  his  life  by  taking  him 
away  from  his  studies,  setting  him  at  work  in  a  horrid 
smelly  tannery  for  a  few  easy  dollars.  Somebody  ought 
to  have  the  law  on  you!" 

"And  you're  nothing  but  a  fussy,  homely,  trouble-messin' 
old  maid.  You  better  go  find  a  man  and  have  a  few 
young  ones  of  your  own  before  you  come  'round  tellin' 
other  people  how  to  raise  theirs.  If  this  is  all  you  come 
to  see  me  about,  I  guess  you  can  hoof  it!" 

"Don't  you  know  your  boy  is  capable  of  writing  poetry!" 
demanded  the  now  hysterical  teacher. 

It  was  the  worst  thing  she  could  have  said. 

"No,  I  don't.  But  if  he  is,  all  the  more  reason  why  he 
should  go  to  the  tannery  and  learn  to  skin  cows !  And  the 
sooner  the  better !" 

"Don't  you  want  to  see  your  own  son  famous?" 

"I've  got  no  guarantee  he'll  be  famous.  But  I'm  sure, 
darned  sure,  of  the  money  he  can  earn  between  now  and 
the  time  he's  twenty-one.  Anyhow,  knowing  how  to  work 
and  earn  money  ain't  goin'  to  stop  him  bein'  famous,  as 
a  poet  or  anything  else,  if  he's  got  it  in  him!" 

"But  these  years  of  his  life  are  the  most  valuable  he'll 
ever  have!" 

"The  more  reason  why  he  ought  to  learn  to  make  money 
in  'em !" 

"It's  a  mystery  why  God  sends  children  to  such  as  you!" 

"Well,  He  sends  'em  and  I  reckon  He  knows  his  busi- 


104  THE 

ness.  He's  been  running  this  planet  a  darned  long  time." 
Threat,  appeal,  argument  did  no  good.  Nathan  went  into 
Caleb  Gridley's  tannery,  into  the  foul,  revolting,  messy, 
nauseating  part  of  the  business,  and  for  six  days  of  working 
from  6:30  in  the  morning  until  6:30  at  night  he  received 
four  dollars,  not  in  cash  but  in  credit  on  the  old  harness 
bill.  In  sixteen  weeks  the  debt  was  paid.  Then  Johnathan 
"began  realizing  good  hard  cash"  on  Nathan's  earning 
abilities. 

Nathan's  sister  went  on  through  the  graded  school  and 
high  school.  It  was  Nathan's  money  which  bought  her 
graduation  dress. 

It  was  a  very  pretty  dress.    It  cost  twenty-nine  dollars. 


ii 

Never  did  a  boy  change  so  completely  or  age  so  quickly 
as  Nathan  in  the  three  years  which  followed.  He  was 
sick  and  broken  the  first  two  or  three  weeks  at  the  sights 
he  was  compelled  to  witness  and  the  smells  which  adhered 
to  him  like  a  plague  wherever  he  moved.  I  tried  to  get 
him  to  come  out  on  Sundays. 

"I  dunno,  Bill,"  he  would  answer,  "I  don't  seem  to 
care  much  about  fooling  'round.  Seems  as  if  I'm  tired 
these  days,  tired  all  the  while.  I  no  more'n  get  home  Satur 
day  night  than  it's  Monday  morning  and  I  gotta  go  back  to 
it  all.  Oh,  Bill,  it'll  kill  me  sure.  You  don't  know  any 
thing  about  it.  It's  awful !" 

The  boy  lost  weight.  He  grew  more  and  more  listless  — 
bitter,  moody. 

"I  don't  care  whether  I  live  or  die,"  he  wailed  one  day 
when  I  mentioned  that  after  the  Academy  I  was  going  on 
to  college.  "Sometimes  I  wish  old  'Cock-eye'  Richards' 
knife  would  slip  when  he's  skinnin'  and  take  me  right  acrost 
the  throat." 

The  boy's  life  suddenly  became  a  hopeless,  hideous 
slavery.  The  horror  of  his  work  lay  in  his  imagination. 
A  lad  of  coarser  fiber  would  have  become  inured  to  the 
tannery.  Nathan  never  became  inured  to  it.  Yet  he  stuck 
it  through.  There  was  no  alternative. 

Sunday  afternoons  he  would  wander  over  the  hills,  lie 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  105 

on  his  back  beside  some  peaceful  meadow  brook  and  dream 
his  dreams.  He  began  taking  a  pad  and  pencil  on  these 
solitary  excursions,  or  a  book.  He  cared  little  for  Old 
Cap  Collier  or  King  Brady  or  the  other  penny-dreadfuls 
which  were  then  in  their  heyday.  His  choice  was  poetry, 
fairy  tales,  Shakespeare. 

"What's  the  use  of  reading  that  stuff?"  he  demanded 
contemptuously  one  day,  after  finishing  a  sample  hair- 
curler  I  had  shown  him.  "It's  all  coarse  and  mechanical, 
and  you  know  the  villain's  going  to  die  at  the  right  minute, 
anyhow,  and  the  hero  win  out  and  all  live  happily  ever 
after.  And  if  you  know  it  in  advance  what's  the  use  of 
spending  a  whole  day  readin'  through  it  to  find  it  out?" 
Then  the  boy 'pulled  a  volume  of  poems  from  beneath  him, 
a  book  that  Miss  Cora  Hastings  had  loaned  him.  He  read 
me  "Grey's  Elegy." 

I  confess  that,  red-blooded,  hob-raising  kid  that  I  was, 
the  sweet  melancholy  of  the  lines,  as  Nathan  read  them, 
"got"  me.  Often  I  found  myself  watching  my  friend,  at 
a  loss  to  understand  him. 

The  other  day  while  searching  among  the  compartments 
in  an  old  wallet,  I  came  upon  a  folded,  time-yellowed  sheet 
of  foolscap  on  which  some  verses  had  once  been  penned 
in  a  youthful  but  symmetrical  hand.  It  was  a  poem  which 
Nathan  composed  back  in  those  years  before  he  had  "found" 
himself.  These  are  sample  lines  of  what  this  sixteen-year- 
old  was  producing: 

DAY  DREAMS 

"Somewhere  over  the  miles,  dear  heart, 

Off  over  a  turquoise  sea, 
There's  a  pleasant  isle  that  is  set  apart 

For  your  rendezvous  with  me. 
There'll  be  never  a  cloud  in  its  skies,  dear  heartj 

And  the  days  will  be  always  fair, 
For  free  as  the  summer  winds  that  blow 

We  will  live  in  our  Eden  there, 

Somewhere ! 

"There'll  be  no  more  heartache  to  spoil  our  dreams, 

There'll  be  no  more  griefs  to  grieve, 

We'll  wander  down  eons  of  golden  years 

Through  the  vales  of  Make-Believe. 


io6  THE  FOG 

And  I'll  drink  of  your  lips,  your  eyes,  your  arms, 
Till  I'm  drunk  with  their  beauty  rare, 

And  you'll  nestle  me  down  till  my  stupor  goes, 
On  a  bed  of  your  glorious  hair. 
Somewhere ! 

"The  wealth  of  the  earth  and  the  sun  shall  be  ours, 

We  shall  know  neither  pride  nor  shame 
Nor  ever  grow  weary  of  too  much  romance 

Nor  spoil  our  sweet  isle  with  a  name. 
And  no  one  shall  find  our  rendezvous, 

No  world  break  the  spell  with  its  blare, 
For  that  will  be  Heaven — just  you  and  I, 

With  no  one  to  part  us  or  care. 

Somewhere !" 

I  submit  this  poem  for  what  it  is  worth.  The  meter 
undoubtedly  might  be  improved.  Yet  it  shows  the  way 
the  lad's  mind  was  leaning,  the  romancer,  the  idealist,  the 
colorist,  the  emotionalist,  always. 

Johnathan  Forge  viewed  a  certain  change  in  his  son 
with  satisfaction. 

"Thank  God,"  he  cried,  "I've  broken  that  boy's  false 
pride  at  last.  Now  maybe  he'll  get  solid  ground  under  his 
feet  and  amount  to  something." 


in 

Yet  one  noontime  in  the  October  which  followed,  Nathan 
so  deported  himself  in  a  certain  pugilistic  situation  that  the 
matter  of  broken  pride  was  left  open  to  reasonable  doubt. 

The  boy  had  drawn  apart  to  work  upon  a  rime  in  a 
notebook.  He  found  no  recreation  in  sitting  around  the 
edge  of  the  yard  listening  to  cheap  opinion,  telling  off- 
color  stories,  pitching  horseshoes  or  flipping  pennies.  In  a 
warm  spot  in  the  sunshine  he  worked  upon  a  new  poem 
which  he  had  titled  "Girl-Without-a-Name."  One  Silas 
Plumb  stole  up  and  snatched  the  notebook  from  him. 
Worse  and  more  mortifying,  Si  headed  back  for  his  fellow 
laborers.  Noting  that  what  he  had  snatched  was  poetry, 
he  was  seized  with  unholy  glee.  Disregarding  Nathan's 
cries  of  anger,  Plumb  leaped  on  a  crate  and  dramatically 
began  to  "elocute"  — 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  107 

"Listen,  fellers!  This  is  rich!  Poetry!  Listen!  'You 
came  to  me  in  my  dreams  last  night,  Dear  Girl  Without  a 
Name " 

Blind,  unreasoning  rage  boiled  upward  through  Nathan. 
Chagrin  and  indignation  fired  every  nerve  in  the  boy's 
body  to  murderous  retaliation.  Plumb  was  a  heavy-footed, 
rumple-clothed,  corn-fed  son  of  a  typical  Vermont  small 
town.  He  was  blue-eyed,  shocky-headed,  red-cheeked  and 
three  years  Nathan's  senior.  But  to  have  the  innermost 
privacies  of  his  romantic  soul  ballyhooed  for  the  bucolic 
ribaldry  and  bovine  amusement  of  the  tannery  men  was 
like  maddening  vitriol  poured  on  Nat's  naked  flesh.  He 
lurched  for  the  notebook  and  when  Si  held  on,  Nathan 
struck  him  the  hardest  smash  in  the  face  he  had  ever  re 
ceived  in  his  life. 

Si  held  his  sickly  grin  for  about  ten  seconds.  Then  it 
froze  on  his  mouth.  He  spat  out  blood  and  teeth.  Purple 
rage  flooded  his  features. 

"I'm  goin'  to  get  you  for  that!"  he  swore. 

He  dropped  off  his  coat,  smeared  his  bloody  mouth  with 
the  back  of  his  big  hand  and  fell  into  clumsy  fighting 
posture.  Loafers  in  the  tannery  came  a-running.  Nathan 
was  pale  but  resolute.  Silas  struck  him.  Stung  to 
fury,  Nathan  hit  back  twice.  The  epochal  battle  began. 
That  battle  was  tannery  talk  for  weeks,  for  months,  for 
years. 

"Si  had  the  punch  to  push  his  dukes  through  the  side 
of  a  plank  fence,"  a  local  enthusiast  described  it  afterward. 
"But  young  Forge  hit  him  three  times  and  run  around  him 
twice  while  Si  was  makin'  up  his  mind  where  he'd  hit 
once." 

Back  and  forth  across  the  enclosure  the  two  youths 
struggled,  upsetting  boxes,  knocking  down  hides,  tripping 
on  yard  refuse,  falling  backward  into  the  circle  of  wildly 
applauding  spectators.  Great  pile-driver  blows  the  larger 
fellow  smashed  at  his  lighter  opponent.  Nathan's  counter 
attack  was  swift  and  rapier -keen,  taking  the  other  by  sur 
prise,  getting  inside  his  defenses,  smashing  his  nose,  closing 
his  eyes,  lacerating  his  lips,  but  always  lacking  the  bodily 
weight  to  strike  the  other  down  or  finish  him  off  with  a 
knock-out. 

There  is  something  vitally  fine  and  fair  in  an  American 


io8  THE  FOG 

crowd.  It  wants  to  see  the  under  dog  get  the  best  of  it. 
Nathan,  because  of  his  slenderness,  was  the  under  dog.  Si 
sensed  that  the  moral  support  of  the  tanners  was  not  with 
him.  He  grew  Germanically  furious. 

The  moral  support  of  his  fellow  workers  meant  little 
to  Nathan,  however.  He  had  to  finish  Plumb  or  be  finished 
himself.  And  those  who,  through  that  summer,  had  called 
Nat  a  mollycoddle  because  he  was  finer  grained  than  them 
selves,  were  swift  and  fair  in  revising  their  opinion  and 
giving  the  stripling  all  the  credit  his  proven  prowess  de 
served. 

The  two  came  together  in  clinches  only  to  break  away 
when  one  saw  an  opening  for  a  telling  blow.  Twice  they 
both  went  down.  The  battle  each  time  turned  into  a 
wrestling  match,  with  any  sort  of  a  "hold"  permitted, — 
biting,  eye-gouging  and  hair-tearing  being  eminently  per 
missible  so  long  as  it  brought  results. 

At  a  quarter  to  one  the  fight  had  started.  Fifteen  min 
utes  later  it  was  still  going  strong,  —  arms  and  faces  of  both 
combatants  bleeding,  shirts  ripped  to  ribbons,  lungs  burst 
ing.  The  employees  paid  no  attention  to  the  tannery  whistle 
for  the  reason  that  no  tannery  whistle  was  blown.  The 
engineer  and  fireman  were  enthusiastically  howling  in  the 
front  row  of  spectators.  The  absence  of  the  whistle  was 
responsible  for  bringing  Caleb  Gridley  down  into  the  yard. 
But  the  old  war-horse  of  the  local  leather  business  was 
immediately  too  interested  himself  to  interfere  or  start  his 
factory.  He  stood  with  a  fierce,  hard  joy  in  his  eye,  await 
ing  the  finish. 

That  finish  came  at  ten  minutes  after  one.  Silas,  worsted 
but  unconquered,  picked  up  a  piece  of  board  and  swung  it 
terribly  for  Nathan's  head.  A  howl  of  protest  arose,  then 
approval  as  Nathan  dodged.  But  Nathan  had  not  dodged 
far  enough  nor  soon  enough.  The  board  ripped  his  left 
ear  from  the  side  of  his  head.  Silas  followed  in,  raising 
one  of  his  big  boots  to  kick  his  opponent  below  the  belt. 
By  accident  more  than  design,  Nathan  tripped  him.  As 
Silas  went  down,  Nathan  sent  a  left  jab  to  his  jaw.  It 
rocked  the  roughneck's  head.  He  sagged,  grinned,  pitched 
downward  on  his  forehead,  and  went  peacefully  off  to  hear 
little  birds  sing  sweetly. 

The  fight  was  finished.    Likewise  both  participants.     For 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  109 

Nathan  saw  his  man  prostrate,  took  three  steps  and  crumpled 
—  senseless. 

Old  Caleb  pushed  forward.  "Take  the  kid  to  the  office," 
he  ordered  curtly.  Grim  satisfaction  lay  on  his  paving- 
block  jaw.  "As  for  that  low-brow,  leave  him  lie  busted.  I 
stand  for  the  man  that  fights  fair!" 

They  carried  the  unconscious  Nathan  to  tannery  head 
quarters.  Doctor  Johnson  was  summoned  by  telephone. 
Nat  was  losing  alarming  quantities  of  blood  from  the  ragged 
ear  and  more  was  trickling  out  between  his  teeth.  First 
aid  was  administered,  but  it  was  a  sickening  business. 

"That's  nasty  bad,"  Johnson  commented  as  he  tried  to 
wash  the  wound.  "It's  almost  tore  from  his  head  —  this 
ear!" 

"Sew  it  back,"  commanded  Caleb. 

"But  he'll  bear  the  scar  for  life." 

"Can't  help  that !  Sew  it  back !  Mustn't  have  so  gamey 
a  little  bantam  goin'  through  life  with  one  ear  missin'!" 

Johnson  phoned  for  Doctor  Birch  to  help  him.  Birch 
brought  a  crude  anesthetizing  outfit.  The  ear  was  sewed 
at  once  to  prevent  the  loss  of  more  blood.  The  lad  was  as 
white  as  paper  in  his  coma.  The  exertion  of  the  past  half- 
hour  had  been  terrific.  It  showed  grisly  on  his  features. 

Two  o'clock  arrived  before  the  surgery  was  finished. 
Nat's  head  was  swathed  in  bandages  which  were  reduced 
to  ribbons  in  the  boy's  thrashings,  as  he  came  out  from 
under  the  anesthetic. 

"Leave  him  here !"  ordered  Caleb.  "He's  gotta  stay  here 
till  he's  stronger."  Then  as  Nathan  gradually  quieted,  he 
demanded  of  the  yard  boss:  "What  started  that  mix-up, 
anyhow  ?" 

"Poetry !"  said  old  Richards.  "This !"  And  he  proffered 
a  torn  and  besmirched  notebook. 

"Poetry!"  cried  Caleb.     "Lemme  see!" 

"He's  always  moonin'  'round,  writin'  poetry,"  volunteered 
Richards.  "Si  yanked  it  outer  his  hands  and  Nat  waded  into 
him.  We  always  thought  Nat  was  a  mollycoddle,  sort  of, 
'count  of  his  poetry  and  dandified  talk.  But  I  guess  after 
ihis  he  can  do  as  he  pleases." 

Nathan's  weakened  condition  quickly  induced  sleep.  It 
was  night  when  he  awoke.  He  was  at  home  and  his 
mother  was  bending  above  him. 


i  io  THE  FOG 

"My  poor,  poor  boy !"  she  crooned.  And  for  the  instant, 
groggy  and  faint  with  fiery  pain  as  he  was,  a  great  up- 
welling  tenderness  toward  his  mother  came  in  Nathan. 
When  she  kissed  him,  his  arms  went  up  around  her  frail 
shoulders  and  he  clung  to  her. 

But  when  he  awoke  the  following  morning  all  sugges 
tions  of  tenderness  were  missing  in  the  petulant,  whining 
Job's  comfort  she  gave  him. 

"You've  bloodied  all  my  best  sheets  and  pillow  cases!" 
she  cried ;  "besides  getting  your  clothes  all  ripped  and 
markin'  yourself  for  life!  Oh,  you  do  make  it  so  hard 
for  your  dear,  dear  mother  —  so  bitter,  bitter  hard!" 

Nathan's  father  came  up  during  the  noon  hour  and  sat 
down  beside  the  bed.  Gravely  he  looked  at  his  son  and 
admiration  lurked  in  his  weak  blue  eyes. 

"Well,  I'm  glad  you've  shown  some  starch  at  last,"  he 
commented.  "I'd  begun  to  think  I  was  raising  a  sissy." 

Thereupon,  the  seventeenth  time  for  his  son's  edification 
and  future  emulation,  Johnathan  launched  good-humoredly 
into  a  recount  of  how  he  (Johnathan)  had  whipped  the 
town  bully  at  fifteen,  against  tremendous  odds,  a  brick 
wall,  and  a  pair  of  brass  knuckles. 

It  was  Johnathan's  way  of  being  kind  and  showing  his 
appreciation  of  what  his  boy  had  done.  The  reports  about 
town  of  Nathan's  prowess  had  come  to  the  father  as  sweet 
music. 

Praise  of  his  boy's  artistry,  poetic  talent  and  romantic 
temperament  had  touched  only  as  the  wind  which  bloweth 
where  it  listeth.  But  that  his  offspring  had  gone  into  a 
brute  encounter,  drawn  blood,  broken  teeth,  gouged  eyes 
and  torn  hair  —  coming  off  victor  though  the  struggle  would 
mark  him  for  life  —  was  grand  and  noble  and  a  cause  for 
pride  and  satisfaction  altogether.  Johnathan  felt  that  he, 
too,  must  not  be  found  wanting. 

So  he  finished  off  the  town  bully  and  then  recounted 
various  other  deeds  of  a  heroic  nature  in  which  he  had 
also  played  the  chief  male  lead. 

Nathan  had  seen  his  father  pale  before  the  six-pound  fist 
of  Caleb  Gridley.  He  had  seen  him  shiver  and  quake  in 
wardly  when  a  neighbor  announced  that  he  would  shoot 
Johnathan  Forge  on  sight  for  having  wrung  the  necks  of 
the  said  neighbor's  chickens  and  tossed  the  dead  birds  over 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  in 

the  fence  in  penalty  for  wandering  into  the  Forge  garden. 
And  Nat  wondered  at  just  what  point  between  boyhood  and 
manhood  his  father  had  lost  his  bellicosity  and  proclivities 
toward  the  manly  art  of  self-defense. 

That  is,  he  asked  himself  consciously.  But  in  his  heart 
he  knew  his  father  had  never  whipped  any  bullies  or  any 
one  else.  He  was  about  as  heroic  as  an  old  mop.  The 
recount  for  emulation  he  was  passing  on  to  his  boy  was  pure 
fabrication  in  which  the  end  justified  the  means. 

Besides,  Nat  had  heard  of  these  Roman  holidays  so  many 
times  that  he  could  repeat  them  verbatim,  even  correct  his 
embattled  sire  when  multiple  narration  brought  exaggera 
tion,  or  the  father  went  astray  on  minor  detail.  Nat  turned 
over  wearily,  therefore,  and  went  to  sleep  —  in  the  center 
of  a  victory  over  the  Foxboro  selectmen  in  which  "all  hands 
had  been  ingloriously  humbled  and  brought  down  to  the 
dust" —  meaning  that  the  Foxboro  selectmen  had  apologized 
and  paid  costs.  Which  they  had  not. 

"And  I  used  to  tell  that  boy  stories  by  the  hour,"  John- 
athan  averred  in  later  years,  " — all  sorts  of  virile,  manly 
stories.  But  he  never  cared  a  great  deal  for  anything  I 
said  to  him.  The  boy  and  I  simply  couldn't  hitch.  He 
had  his  mother's  blood  —  he  was  a  Farman  through  and 
through !" 

Nathan  came  back  to  consciousness  and  realized  his  father 
was  still  by  his  side,  demanding  angrily,  "Are  you  listen 
ing?"  and  that  Caleb  Gridley's  name  was  mentioned. 

"He's  sent  word  he  wants  to  see  you  as  soon's  you're 
fit  —  over  to  his  office.  And  for  your  own  sake,  young  man, 
let's  hope  he  doesn't  fire  you  for  this  mix-up!" 

The  father  eventually  went  out  and  Nathan  passed  from 
dreams  with  his  eyes  closed  to  dreams  with  his  eyes  open, 
pondering. 

IV 

Out  of  Nat's  convalescence  the  mother  remembered  that 
she  "had  nursed  him  faithfully  till  she  was  about  sick  from 
the  strain."  That  she  had  "made  of  him"  —  meaning  un 
doubtedly  the  moment  of  his  awakening  when  he  had  em 
braced  her  and  she  had  kissed  him  —  and  had  done  her  best 
by  him  according  as  the  Lord  gave  her  strength. 


112  THE  FOG 

The  father  remembered  he  had  "told  the  lad  stories  by 
the  hour"  (actual  talking  time,  twenty-four  minutes  of  a 
single  half -noon)  and  "cheered  him  by  praising  him  for 
not  taking  the  back  talk  of  anybody." 

But  Nathan!  He  only  remembered  that  his  mother  had 
fussed  about  the  blood  on  the  bed  clothing;  that  his  father 
had  come  in  and  "reeled  off  the  same  old  pack  of  lies" 
about  his  own  boyhood  and  ended  by  reminding  him  that  if 
he  lost  his  job  at  the  tannery,  God  help  him  for  the  father 
would  not,  needing  his  money  just  then  more  than  ever. 


Nat  left  his  bed  and  idled  about  the  house.  His  father 
came  home  at  noon  and  contended  that  if  he  were  strong 
enough  to  "fool  around  the  place"  he  was  strong  enough 
to  "get  back  on  the  job."  So  that  afternoon  Nat  took  an 
hour  to  reel  a  dizzy  way  to  the  tannery  office. 

Caleb  looked  up  from  a  pile  of  freight  bills. 

"Dad  says  you  wanted  to  see  me,"  announced  the  lad. 
He  hoped  old  Gridley  would  "fire"  him.  Any  job  would 
be  better  than  returning  to  the  horrors  of  the  tannery. 

"Siddown,"  ordered  Caleb  with  a  wave  of  his  slab-like 
hand. 

The  boy  accepted  a  seat  and  waited,  his  head  whirling 
lightly.  Caleb  finished  his  business  and  then  jerked  his 
head  toward  a  side  room  where  the  two  could  talk  alone. 
It  had  an  unused  desk,  an  old  iron  stove,  a  battered  table, 
a  few  chairs,  an  old  green  safe. 

Caleb  closed  the  door,  motioned  to  a  seat,  found  one 
himself  and  proceeded  to  fall  into  deep  thought.  He  cut 
an  enormous  corner  from  a  chunk  of  "chewin'." 

"Perty  good  scrap  you  put  up  the  other  day,  bub,"  he 
remarked  at  length. 

Nathan  sought  to  keep  his  mental  balance,  wishing  some 
one  would  get  him  a  drink,  oh,  for  ice  water! 

"Thank  you,"  he  said  weakly. 

"I  allus  admire  to  see  a  man  that  can  use  his  dukes.  Head 
hurt  you  much?" 

"Yes,"  the  boy  said  truthfully. 

"Hard  luck!     But  you  gotta  expect  bangs  and  bruises 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  113 

in  this  world,  bub.    What's  your  old  man  think  about  it?" 

"He  said  if  it  lost  me  my  job  here,  God  help  me,"  re 
turned  Nathan  defiantly. 

Caleb  was  silent  for  a  time.  Grim  humor  lurked  in  his 
hard  old  eye.  Twice  he  lurched  forward,  raised  the  cover 
and  spat  in  the  bowels  of  the  dead  iron  stove. 

"That  so?  Sort  of  a  goldarn  slave-driver,  your  old  man, 
ain't  he?" 

Nathan  offered  no  comment. 

"Whatcher  want  to  go  gettin'  into  that  fuss  with  Plumb 
for,  anyhow?" 

"I  was  writing  something  —  private  —  and  Si  came  up 
and  grabbed  it  away.  Then  he  wouldn't  give  it  back." 

Nathan  stood  in  awe  of  old  Gridley,  partly  because  he 
was  the  boy's  employer,  mostly  because  he  was  her  father. 

"Yeah,"  affirmed  Caleb,  "What  was  it?" 

"It  was  —  it  was  —  poetry,"  the  lad  confessed  lamely.  He 
wished  he  could  get  a  drink,  any  kind  of  water  if  only  it 
would  keep  the  office  from  spinning  around  and  around. 

"So  you're  a  poet?" 

"I  like  to  read  poetry  and  try  writing  it  —  sometimes." 

"So  I  heard.    I'm  a  bit  of  a  poet  myself !" 

For  an  instant  Nathan  was  dumfounded.  Had  he  heard 
aright?  The  boy  fought  off  his  vertigo  and  stared.  Was 
the  old  man  jesting?  But  apparently  Old  Caleb  was  never 
more  serious  in  his  life.  Moreover,  he  too  was  confused, 
as  though  chagrined  by  the  confession.  Nathan  would  have 
accepted  that  his  employer  had  speared  grizzlies,  kicked  over 
baby  carriages,  fired  orphan  asylums  and  kicked  the  crutches 
from  cripples.  But  a  poet!  It  was  cataclysmic. 

"Did  you  —  did  you  —  ever  write  any  poetry?" 

"Once!" 

"What  for?    What  came  of  it?" 

"That  was  a  perty  good  piece  you  started  to  write  when 
Plumb  interrupted  you.  Jake  gimme  the  book.  Then 
again,  my  wife  lemme  see  a  piece  you  writ  and  give  to 
my  daughter  a  while  back.  You  seem  to  be  a  perty  good 
poet.  I'll  show  you  somethin'." 

To  Nathan's  utter  bewilderment,  Caleb  went  to  the  green 
box  safe.  He  selected  an  old  wallet  from  its  cavernous 
compartments  and  returned  to  his  creaking  seat.  With 
his  elbows  on  his  enormous  knees,  he.  leaned  forward.  He 


ii4  THE  FOG 

went  through  the  wallet  until  he  came  to  a  paper  he  sought. 
He  drew  it  out  with  sausage-like  fingers,  a  sheet  of  rusty, 
mildewed  parchment  on  which  some  verses  had  been  written 
in  violet  ink.  Reverently  he  handed  it  across  as  though  it 
were  a  million-dollar  government  bond. 
Nathan  read: 

"To  G.  H. 

"Your  eyes  are  like  the  twinkling  stars, 
Your  voice  is  like  the  dew 
I  sit  upon  the  hill  and  dream 
Of  you,  my  love,  of  you. 

"You  are  the  inspiration  of  my  life 
To  you  I  will  ever  be  true 
When  I  am  old  and  my  hair  is  gray 
I'll  ever  think  of  you. 

"All  of  us  have  a  secret  love 
Some,  memories  of  yesterday, 
Like  cake  to  finish  a  good  square  meal 
It  cheers  us  on  our  way. 

— CALEB  GRIDLEY." 
Paris,  Vt,  June  2,  1871. 

The  old  man  watched  the  youth's  face  closely  as  he  read. 
There  was  pathetic  anxiety  in  the  question  which  followed : 

"Well,"  demanded  Caleb,  "what's  your  opinion?  There 
was  folks  said  it  was  good  enough  to  have  published  —  once ! 
But  I  couldn't  —  I  couldn't !" 

The  tanner  sighed  and  arose.  He  walked  to  the  window 
looking  down  on  the  cluttered  yard.  There  he  stuck  his 
big  hands  in  his  stomach  pockets  and  "rolled  his  chew." 

With  the  tactlessness  of  boyhood,  Nathan  announced, 
"The  meter's  off  and  besides  —  it  doesn't  really  say  anything 
—  that  is,  in  a  nice  smooth  way." 

If  he  had  struck  old  Caleb  with  a  rock  he  could  not 
have  surprised  the  tanner  more  dynamically. 

"Don't  say  anything!  Smooth  way!  Meter?  What's 
meter  ?" 

"In  poetry  it's  the  character  of  a  stanza.  It's  made  up 
of  any  given  number  of  lines,  divided  into  measures  equal 
in  time  —  and  length  of  syllables  —  and  rhythmic  construc 
tion." 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  115 

"Well,  I'll  be  damned!"  cried  Caleb.  "Where  did  you 
learn  that  —  them  big  words  and  all  ?" 

"Miss  Hastings  showed  me.  The  rest  sort  of  always 
came  easy  to  me." 

"Then  what  the  hell  are  you  doin'  workin'  here  in  my 
place,  when  you  got  book-learnin'  like  that?" 

"My  father  makes  me." 

"He  must  be  a  dog-gone  bigger  fool  than  I  allus  took  him 
for.  Say  that  book-learnin'  over !" 

Nathan  complied. 

"Now  what  does  it  mean  in  plain  Vermont  jaw -music?" 

Nathan  was  beginning  to  forget  his  dizziness. 

"It  means  that  to  make  poetry  read  smoothly  the  lines 
in  each  verse  must  have  exactly  the  same  number  of  syl 
lables.  They  must  be  emphasized  in  the  same  way  in  the 
same  place  in  all  the  verses  and  yet  give  perfect  emphasis. 
You've  just  got  a  lot  of  lines  here  with  the  final  words 
rhyming." 

"But  you  said  it  didn't  say  anything!"  Caleb  was  not 
angry  so  much  as  hurt,  grievously  hurt.  "I  allus  thought 
it  said  a  lot,"  he  added,  with  a  little  catch  in  his  voice. 

"I  mean  something  really  fine  and  beautiful  and  rare  — 
different  from  the  ordinary  way  we  write  or  think  or 
talk,  if  you  understand  what  I  mean.  For  instance,  you 
say  in  your  first  line  that  somebody's  eyes  are  like  the 
stars  and  his  voice " 

"Her  voice!"  corrected  old  Caleb. 

"  —  Her  voice  is  like  the  dew.  Well,  that  doesn't  really 
mean  anything.  Nobody  ever  saw  a  woman  with  eyes 
like  actual  stars  or  a  voice  like  real  dew,  because  dew 
doesn't  make  any  noise,  anyhow,  let  alone  having  a  voice. 
Poetry  tries  to  say  things  better  and  softer  and  finer  than 
any  one  has  ever  said  'em  before  and  that's  where  you've 
fallen  down." 

"How  would  you  say  it?" 

Caleb  had  come  across,  sunk  down  into  the  creaky  chair 
with  his  knees  parted,  his  bulbous  finger  tips  pressed  to 
gether  between  them,  the  world  and  business  forgot,  —  a 
gray-haired  man  seeking  pointers  in  rhyming  from  a  minstrel 
with  a  bashed  head. 

"Well,  what  you  want  to  express  is  that  you  sat  on  a 
hilltop  thinking  of  a  woman.  And  somehow  the  night  was 


n6  THE  FOG 

so  soft  and  wonderful  you  couldn't  help  comparing  her  with 
the  view  around  you.  So  suppose  instead  of  saying  you 
sat  on  the  hill  and  thought  of  the  woman  having  star-like 
eyes,  you  looked  off  to  some  star,  the  prettiest,  brightest  of 
them  all.  And  her  face  seemed  to  come  before  you  in  it  — 
Say,  who  is  this  woman,  anyhow?"  Nathan  broke  off 
suddenly. 

Old  Caleb's  gaze  dropped  to  his  horny  hands.  He  stopped 
chewing. 

"Once  on  a  time,  bub  —  once  on  a  time  —  back  in  my  life 
—  there  was  a  girl.  Well  —  I  loved  her  —  and  so  —  I  writ 
this  poetry." 

It  seemed  to  the  awe-struck  boy  as  though  a  section  of 
the  universe  slid  back' then  and  disclosed  the  mighty  works 
which  make  the  worlds  go  around. 

Old  Caleb  Gridley,  rich  —  as  the  village  phrased  it  —  "be 
yond  dreams  of  avarice",  hard-cider  drinker,  leading  select 
man  and  poker-player  Saturday  nights  under  Jimmy  Styles' 
barber  shop  —  most  of  all  her  father!  —  once  upon  a  time 
old  Caleb  Gridley  had  been  as  other  boys  and  men,  even 
as  Nathan.  He  had  loved  a  girl  and  sought  balm  in  hexam 
eters. 

"And  did  you  marry  her  ?"  asked  the  astonished  boy  after 
a  moment.  He  spoke  as  the  superstitious  refer  to  the  dead. 
"Was  it  Mrs.  Gridley?" 

"No,  b'dam,  it  warn't  Mrs.  Gridley !" 

A  little  tear  squeezed  out  of  the  man's  hard  eye  —  a 
ludicrously  little  tear  on  a  ludicrously  big  and  beefy  face.  It 
stayed  there  for  a  moment.  Then  it  melted. 

Nathan  turned  and  tiptoed  softly  out  of  Eden.  In  quite 
another  voice  he  suggested: 

"I  could  show  you,  perhaps,  how  to  polish  this  and  make 
it  better,  by  doing  it  with  you  as  we  go  along." 
•  A  red-haired  girl  thrust  her  flaming  head  in  the  door. 

"Mike  Sweeney's  come  for  them  calfskins  and  they  ain't 
all  bundled  yet,"  she  whined. 

"You  tell  Mike  Sweeney  to  go  to  hell!"  roared  Caleb. 
"And  if  you  interrupt  me  again  with  calfskins  I'll  kill  the 
both  o'  ye  and  fire  you  beside!" 

The  girl  closed  the  door.  Caleb  swore  volubly  for  a  half- 
moment  about  the  deficiencies  of  certain  hirelings  "these 
days"  in  the  matter  of  mental  endowment.  Then  he  begged : 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  117 

"Go  on,  bub!  Tell  me  what  you  was  sayin'  about  that 
poetry." 

"Let's  get  a  pencil  and  paper,"  Nathan  suggested.  "We'll 
work  it  out  together." 


VI 

It  was  dark  outside  and  the  tannery  had  long  been  de 
serted  when  a  pathetically  pleased  old  war  horse  of  business 
and  an  addle-pated  young  poet  ended  the  new  version  of 
Caleb  Gridley's  youthful  sentiment. 

"Now  resui  it  all  over,  out  loud,"  ordered  the  tanner. 
He  paced  up  and  down  with  his  dented,  dusty,  greenish 
derby  on  the  back  of  his  head,  cant-hook  thumbs  in  the 
armpits  of  his  vest.  Nat  read: 

"GRACIA 

"Sometimes,  dear  heart,  in  the  quiet  night, 

When  the  stars  hang  soft  and  low, 
I  slip  away  from  the  clash  and  care 

To  the  Hills  of  Long  Ago. 
Across  those  Hills  in  the  whisp'ring  dark, 

With  the  night  breeze  sighing  through, 
I  see  those  castles  we'd  planned  to  build 

When  our  dreams  had  all  come  true. 

"Your  face  grows  plain  in  an  evening  star, 

Ere  the  moon  rides  high  and  cold, 
And  Memory  tunes  with  the  summer  night 

On  a  chord  that's  rare  and  old. 
The  troth  we  pledged  comes  in  sad  rebuke 

To  a  thousand  loveless  days, 
But  wandering  fires  led  me  off  and  down, 

'Long  a  thousand  ambushed  ways. 

"Yet  somewhere  deep  in  each  tuneful  night 

Plays  a  softer,  sweeter  lay; 
Though  life  is  gray  with  a  thousand  sighs 

It  has  held  one  deep-pink  day. 
And  thus  the  glow  of  the  Long  Ago 

Keeps  my  path  to  you,  dear,  bright; 
Yet  a  little  while  and  Our  Morning  dawns 

So  good  night,  dear  heart,  good  night !" 


ii8  THE  FOG 

"Don't  you  see,"  argued  Nathan,  "you've  said  the  very 
same  thing,  only  this  is  smooth  and  dreamy.  You  have  a 
feeling  old  Mr.  Abbot,  the  music  teacher,  might  play  it 
on  his  'cello,  maybe.  That's  the  meaning  of  real  poetry, 
Mr.  Gridley  —  at  least  as  I  see  it  —  to  say  the  common  thing 
uncommon,  sweet  and  soft  and  low,  so  it  lurks  in  your  mind 
like  music." 

"I  guess  I  understand,  bub,"  replied  the  old  man  huskily. 
"That's  a  dam'  good  piece  we've  writ  here.  If  Sam  Hod, 
o'  the  Daily  Telegraph,  can't  make  space  for  it,  I'll  call 
his  notes.  Bub,  what  the  plunkin'-hell  does  your  old  man 
be  thinkin'  of,  settin'  you  to  skinning  cows?  Want  to 
make  you  at  my  age  what  I  am,  maybe?" 

Nathan  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  he  answered 
sadly : 

"It's  the  money  I  can  earn.    He  needs  it." 

"Money?  Money?  Dam'  money!  Once  I  might  o' 
writ  pieces  like  this,  bub  —  dam'  good  pieces.  But  my  dad 
put  his  foot  down  and  said  that  I  should  make  money  too. 
An'  look  at  me!  I  ain't  worth  nothin'  else.  And  all  this 
town  knows  it."  The  tanner's  voice  broke  and  he  began  to 
chew  furiously.  He  turned  away. 

"I  can't  help  myself,"  lamented  Nathan.  "He  makes 
me  work  and  so  I  must.  I'm  only  waiting  to  grow.  And 
then  I'll  go  away,  I  guess,  where  he  can  never  get  trace  of 
me  again." 

"Bub,  what  say  you  and  me  be  partners  —  in  poetry?" 

"Partners  —  in  poetry?" 

"I'd  like  to  write  more  pieces  like  this,  with  you,  bub. 
B'dam,  I  ain't  had  such  a  soul-satisfyin'  afternoon  in  thirty 
year!  S'pose  you  quit  the  yard  and  come  up  here  and 
see  to  things  about  the  office.  The  brains  o'  that  red 
headed  girl  rattle  round  in  her  head  like  a  peanut  in  a  wash 
boiler.  And  now  and  then  we'll  fool  with  hexy  — 
hexy " 

"Hexameters,"  said  Nathan  gravely. 

"Hexy-whatever  you-call-'em,"  said  Caleb. 

"You  mean  you  aren't  going  to  fire  me  for  fighting? 
You'll  give  a  me  a  job  up  here  in  the  office,  instead  ?" 

"That's  it,  bub.  You  and  me!  Cow  hides  for  bread 
and  butter.  Poems  for  dessert.  Saturday  afternoons  and 
Sundays?  What  say?  —  what?" 


POET  IN  HOMESPUN  119 

"Th-Th-Thank  you,  Mr.  Gridley,"  was  all  that  Nathan 
could  call  up.  He  felt  a  sudden  grim  affection  for  the  old 
tanner  who  had  been  keeping  the  heart  of  a  poet  locked 
under  his  tough  hide  for  two  or  three  decades. 

"The  wages,"  said  Caleb,  "will  be  two  dollars  more  a  week. 
I  guess  a  poet  oughta  be  worth  it.  But  the  real  reason  for  the 
raise  is  keepin'  your  mouth  shut.  The  minute  you  go  tellin' 
what  you  and  me's  mutually  interested  in  —  you're  fired!" 

"I  understand,  Mr.  Gridley.    I'm  much  obliged." 

Overwhelmed  with  this  sudden  turn  in  his  affairs,  the  boy 
began  blindly  picking  up  the  scratch  papers  strewn  about 
which  they  had  spoiled.  Carelessly  he  ripped  them  in  strips 
until  he  came  to  the  asinine  lines  of  Caleb  s  in  1871. 

"You  won't  need  these  any  more,  will  you,"  he  asked,  "now 
that  we've  written  them  better?" 

The  tanner  rescued  the  sheet  from  the  boy's  hand,  how 
ever.  Carefully  folding  it,  he  laid  it  away  in  the  worn,  brown 
wallet  and  locked  it  up  in  the  old  green  safe. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FIRST   COMPLICATIONS 


"The  Elms"  school  for  girls  consisted  of  a  trio  of  high- 
pillared  Colonial  buildings  on  the  main  street  of  Mount 
Hadley,  Massachusetts.  They  stood  behind  lofty  arches  of 
towering  trees  that  were  old  when  Washington  passed 
through  to  inspect  Ticonderoga. 

Mount  Hadley  had  an  atmosphere  possessed  by  many 
scholastic,  hilltop  New  England  towns,  —  wide-verandahed, 
leisurely,  sharply  colored,  exclusive.  From  its  diminutive 
brownstone  Memorial  library  to  its  chaste  white  churches, 
it  expressed  simplicity,  asceticism,  grace  and  dignified  charm. 
The  nasturtium-flavored  individuality  of  the  town  stood  in 
clearly  defined  contrast  to  the  clash  and  clatter  of  muddy- 
guttered,  smoky-scented,  foreign-populated  paper  cities  far 
ther  down  the  Connecticut.  A  ninety-minute  suburban  trol 
ley  service  connected  it  with  Springfield,  Massachusetts. 

Madelaine  Theddon  was  entering  her  second  year  at  "The 
Elms"  when,  upon  emerging  from  the  college  store-and- 
postoffice  early  one  September  evening,  she  saw  a  motor  car 
draw  to  the  near-by  curb  and  a  man  leap  out.  He  blocked 
her  way  with  easy  self-confidence.  She  recognized  Gordor 
Ruggles. 

Physically,  Gordon  seemed  to  have  attained  maturity  in 
a  year.  He  had  gained  in  height  at  an  expense  of  girth. 
His  auto  togs  made  him  look  still  taller  and  older.  But 
his  twisted  front  tooth  was  as  prominent  and  his  eyelid 
flopped  as  badly  as  ever. 

'Hello,  Madge!"  he  cried.    "Still  sore?" 

"I've  never  been  'sore'  at  you,  Gordon.  That's  a  coarse 
and  unkind  thing  to  say !" 

"Well,  you  swallowed  all  the  guff  Aunt  Grace  handed  you 
me." 


FIRST  COMPLICATIONS  121 

"Please  don't  talk  so,  Gordon.  If  you  haven't  been  — 
well,  interesting,  it's  because  you  haven't  seemed  to  me  to 
}ive  up  to  the  best  that's  in  you." 

"You  didn't  talk  that  way  the  first  time  we  met,  Madge  — 
when  Aunt  Grace  was  showing  tie  the  gate.  You  seemed 
like  a  regular  girl,  for  a  time.  Then  right  off  you  got  stiff 
—  stiff  as  froze  mutton." 

"You  didn't  act  very  gentlemanly  around  my  home  Af 
terward,  Gordon.  Your  behavior  displeased  my  mother. 
I  couldn't  help  charging  that  displeasure  against  you." 

"You  made  me  feel  for  a  time,  Madge,  as  if  you'd  give  a 
fellow  a  chance.  Then  you  turned  the  glassy  stare  on  me 
like  —  like  —  all  the  rest."  Gordon  said  this  in  a  hard,  dry 
self-pity  which  he  knew  intuitively  how  to  employ  with 
deadly  effect  on  Madelaine's  type  of  femininity. 

"Mother  asked  you  not  to  try  to  see  me  or  find  out  where 
I'd  started  in  school.  She  begged  you  to  go  away  and  leave 
me  alone.  And  you  haven't  paid  the  slightest  regard  to  her. 
Is  that  honorable  ?  What  'chance'  do  you  want  ?" 

"What  right  did  she  have  to  ask  it  ?  She  flung  me  a  dare. 
Because  I  took  it  and  smoked  you  out,  she's  sore.  And  she's 
gypping  my  game  —  with  you." 

"Just  what  is  your  'game,'  Gordon  ?" 

"Aw,  you  know  what  I  want.  You  could  show  you  were 
a  good  sport  once  in  a  while.  At  least,  be  human.  But 
instead  of  acting  like  a  cousin,  you  act  —  and  Aunt  Grace 
acts  —  as  if  I  were  a  pestilence.  I  want  to  be  friends  and 
neither  of  you  will  let  me." 

Gordon  had  planted  himself  in  front  of  Madelaine  in 
such  a  manner  that  she  was  unable  to  pass  easily.  But  she 
was  not  afraid,  merely  annoyed.  She  was  willowy  and 
fragile  beside  him  but  her  calm,  dark  eyes  searched  his  own 
bravely. 

"We  can  be  friends,  if  that's  all  you  wish.  But  so  long 
as  you  annoy  mother,  you  annoy  me.  And  that's  all  I  have 
to  say." 

"You  think  I  am  a  hell-buster,  don't  you,  Madge?  You  — 
even  you !  —  won't  give  me  the  benefit  of  the  doubt." 

Along  this  attack,  Gordon  knew  he  could  always  score,  if 
he  acted  sufficiently  persistent  and  apparently  sincere.  The 
quick  gleam  in  those  expressive  dark  eyes  showed  when  he 
had  scored  now. 


122  THE  FOG 

"Gordon,"  cried  the  girl,  "why  do  you  persist  in  coming 
up  here,  week  after  week  and  month  after  month,  talking 
and  acting  as  you  do  ?  What  is  it  you  want  ?" 

"You're  the  only  girl  who  ever  made  me  feel  that  if  she 
were  friendly,  really  friendly,  I  could  pull  up  and  amount 
to  something.  Is  it  any  wonder  I  should  be  interested  in 
sticking  around?  When  a  guy  has  met  that  kind  of  girl, 
he's  on  the  outs  with  every  one  unless  he  can  have  her  to 
play  with.  And  that's  you!  And  the  truth!" 

"But  I  can't  play  around  with  any  one.  I'm  attending 
school.  And  next  spring  mother  and  I  are  going 
abroad " 

"Every  one  plays  'round  part  of  the  time,  Madge !"  Gor 
don  came  closer  as  the  girl  shrank  back.  "I've  been  think 
ing  about  you  nearly  every  day  since  I  met  you,  Madge. 
I'm  in  a  rotten  way.  Instead  of  helping  me,  you  make  it 
worse.  Is  that  fair?  When  a  fellow  might  go  square  if 
he  had  the  chance,  is  it  fair  to  make  it  as  hard  as  you  can  ?" 

"I  don't  want  to  make  it  hard  for  any  one,  Gordon.  But 
mother  made  me  promise  I  wouldn't  encourage  you  and  I 
should  keep  that  promise." 

"A  bad  promise  is  better  broken  than  kept,  Madge.  And 
what  kind  of  a  promise  is  it  anyway,  when  it  injures  and 
hurts  somebody?" 

This  sort  of  argument,  harped  upon  long  enough,  would 
have  the  girl's  defenses  down. 

"Please,  Gordon,  let  me  pass.     People  are  watching." 

"Madge,  are  you  afraid  of  me?" 

"Of  course  I'm  not  afraid  of  you!" 

"Get  into  the  car  then.  For  an  hour  let  me  talk  to  you — 
while  we're  driving,  I  mean.  I'll  have  you  back  by  eight 
o'clock.  I  promise  it,  faithfully.  You've  never  heard  my 
side  of  the  story,  Madge.  Until  you  do,  it's  not  fair  to 
condemn  me.  Not  on  your  mother's  say-so." 

"I  can't!    I  just  can't!" 

Gordon's  face  assumed  the  proper  recklessness. 

"All  right,  if  that's  the  way  you  feel  about  it.  But  next 
time  you  hear  of  me  raising  hell  don't  blame  anybody  but 
yourself.  Didn't  you  ever  have  the  feeling  that  no  one 
care  about  you  —  what  you  did,  or  what  became  of  you  i 
No,  of  course  you  haven't " 

"Gord !    Come  back !    Don't  go  off  feeling  so !" 


FIRST  COMPLICATIONS  123 

"I  can't  help  the  way  I  feel.  I'm  getting  to  the  place 
where  I  don't  give  a  hang.  I  thought  for  a  time  you  might 
help  me.  I  see,  as  usual,  I'm  out  o'  luck !" 

It  hurt  the  girl  to  have  the  lad  talk  so,  especially  as  he 
appeared  sincere.  Suppose  Mrs.  Theddon  were  wrong !  Sup 
pose  she  were  prejudiced !  She,  Madelaine,  had  known  that 
horrible  feeling  of  nobody  caring.  Was  it  square  of  her 
mother  to  put  such  restrictions  upon  her?  The  girl  was  a 
queer  mixture  of  half  woman,  half  child.  The  "child"  was 
always  the  orphan  child,  wondering  to  whom  it  belonged, 
why  life  had  been  "different." 

"Where  do  you  want  to  drive?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  up  to  Amherst  and  back,  or  Greenfield;  what 
does  it  matter  so  long  as  I  have  a  good  chance  to  talk,  and 
get  you  back  by  eight  o'clock?" 

"Well,  I'll  have  to  tell  Mrs.  Anderson  over  to  the  House. 
And  you  may  have  to  assure  her  you're  my  cousin.  It's 
against  the  rules  otherwise,  you  know." 

"Fair  enough!  Hustle!  We've  a  couple  of  hours  yet 
before  dark." 

H 

Madelaine  soon  discovered,  not  without  annoyance,  that 
the  pummeling  of  the  machine  precluded  much  confidential 
intercourse.  Also,  once  under  way  on  the  Deerfield  road, 
Gordon's  mood  shifted.  He  began  to  show  off  his  dexterity 
in  managing  the  contraption.  Beside  the  motors  of  five 
years  hence,  it  would  be  listed  as  a  "haybaler."  But  in 
Gordon's  hands  it  was  no  "haybaler."  It  was  a  threshing- 
machine  with  the  "governor"  lost. 

"I  thought  you  wanted  to  tell  me  about  yourself,"  the 
girl  reminded  him  as  they  reached  a  stretch  of  reasonably 
smooth  roadway  three  miles  out  of  town. 

"Oh,  for  the  love  of  Mike!  Can't  you  be  human  for 
once,  Madge?  Simply  enjoy  jourself !  Or  if  you  can't, 
let  me  enjoy  myself.  It's  enough  for  me  to  have  you  along 
at  such  a  time.  You're  that  kind  of  girl.  That's  why  I've 
wanted  you  so  much." 

The  sun  sank  down  behind  the  Berkshires.  The  Connecti 
cut  valley  was  hushed  and  beautiful.  Cattle  lowed  in  moist 
iarnyards  along  their  way.  They  heard  the  clinking  and 


124  THE  FO'G 

squeaking  of  milk  pails  and  the  nicker  of  horses  with  heads 
hanging  low  over  whitewashed  paddock  fences. 

A  dew  mist  hung  above  the  glassy  river.  The  world  grew 
dreamy.  Gordon  turned  off  upon  a  country  road.  With  a 
sudden  twinge  of  alarm  Madelaine  lost  her  sense  of  direc 
tion. 

"Where  are  you  going,  Gordon?"  she  demanded  at  the 
end  of  a  half -hour. 

"Oh,  I  know  a  short  cut.  You'll  see.  Hell !   What's  that?" 

They  had  passed  through  a  thickly  shadowed  wood.  The 
road  opened  out  between  a  hill  of  undergrowth  on  one  side 
and  a  pasture  on  the  other.  No  houses  were  in  sight. 
They  were  surrounded  by  typical  western  Massachusetts 
country.  And  the  car  had  stopped  abruptly. 

The  boy  alighted,  raised  the  hood,  tinkered  with  the  en 
gine.  He  cranked  several  times  in  silence.  At  first  Made 
laine  was  interested.  Then  she  grew  annoyed.  Gordon  did 
not  appear  out  of  temper.  This  was  unnatural.  He  even 
stood  off,  looked  at  the  machine  and  —  grinned. 

"Has  anything  gone  wrong  —  seriously  wrong?"  the  girl 
demanded. 

"Don't  know  yet.    Hope  not !" 

He  toyed  with  the  engine  again,  even  going  to  the  trouble 
of  producing  a  bag  of  tools.  Then  he  lighted  a  cigarette, 
inhaled  a  head  full  and  opined: 

"This  looks  like  a  peach  of  a  fix,  Madge.  It's  lucky  I'm 
your  cousin!" 

"But  I've  got  to  get  back  by  eight  o'clock,  Gordon.  You 
promised  that!" 

"Schools  make  me  sick!  A  girl  as  old  as  you  having 
to  get  into  the  house  at  dark  —  like  a  little  freckled-faced 
brat!  It's  the  limit.  You  ought  to  shock  'em  good!" 

"Gordon!  Please  see  if  you  can't  start  the  car.  We've 
come  a  long  way  and  an  evening  star  is  shining  already." 

"I  can't  help  it  if  something's  gone  wrong,  can  I?  I'm 
no  mechanic.  I  didn't  make  the  machine!  I'd  fix  it  if  I 
could !" 

"You  mean  to  say  you  can't  fix  it  —  that  there's  no  pros 
pect  of  getting  it  fixed  —  so  we  can  get  back  by  eight 
o'clock?" 

"Oh,  get  off  your  high  horse,  Madge!  Have  a  heart! 
What  do  you  think  I'm  trying  to  do  —  get  you  in  Dutch  ?" 


FIRST  COMPLICATIONS  125 

Madelaine  looked  at  her  watch.  It  was  twenty-five  min 
utes  past  seven.  The  most  disturbing  phase  of  the  predica 
ment  was  that  she  had  no  knowledge  of  the  locality  nor 
.vhere  to  go  for  help.  Gordon  lighted  another  cigarette  and 
stared  at  his  car  ruefully. 

"There's  only  one  way  out,"  he  finally  declared,  "find  a 
house  with  a  telephone  and  have  a  garage  car  come  out 
and  tow  us." 

"That  will  take  an  awful  long  time,  won't  it,  Gordon?" 

"Well,  and  what  of  it?" 

"But  I've  got  to  be  back  at  eight,  I  told  you !  How  many 
times  must  I  say  it?" 

"Oh,  hang  eight  o'clock!  I  didn't  guarantee  to  get  you 
back  regardless  of  accident !  They  ought  to  have  sense 
enough  to  know  that  some  things  might  happen  that  couldn't 
be  helped." 

"Perhaps  they  would  if  so  many  girls  didn't  use  that  acci 
dent  excuse  until  it's  thin  and  threadbare.  Besides,  I'm 
not  quite  convinced,  Gordon,  that  this  is  an  accident.  I 
fail  to  understand  why  your  car  should  stop  so  suddenly 
away  off  here  in  this  lonely  wood.  Everything  appeared 
to  be  working  excellently  until  we  left  the  highway."  Her 
lips  grew  hard.  "I  think  you'd  better  start  hunting  that 
telephone,  Gordon.  And  I'll  go  along  and  call  mother  in 
Springfield.  It's  plain  we're  not  going  to  return  by  eight 
o'clock  or  anywhere  near  it." 

"Well,  you  wait  here  till  I  go  around  the  next  turn.  I'll 
see  if  I  sight  a  house.  If  I  do,  I'll  call  you."  But  the 
girl  did  not  miss  the  dull  angry  flush  on  Gordon's  face  at 
reference  to  Mrs.  Theddon. 

The  fellow  stumbled  off  down  the  sandy  road.  Madelaine 
waited.  To  run  after  him  would  have  been  asinine.  He 
was  gone  a  disquieting  time.  The  girl  drew  her  sweater- 
coat  about  her  shoulders  as  the  last  daylight  faded  and  the 
stars  grew  brighter.  It  was  ghastly  quiet.  Somewhere  off 
across  the  valley  a  dog  barked.  She  heard  the  faint  tinkle 
of  a  cow  bell.  From  down  among  the  frowsy  woodland 
ferns  at  her  right  came  a  faint  trickling  of  water.  A  mos 
quito  sang  close  to  her  ear.  The  dew  was  heavy.  It  gath 
ered  in  huge  drops  on  the  leather  seat  and  the  thick,  brass- 
framed  windshield. 

Madelaine  heard  her  cousin's  returning  footsteps  in  the 


i2f  THE  FOG 

sana  before  she  discerned  his  figure.  Then  he  stopped  to 
light  a  cigarette. 

"It  was  a  devil  of  a  ways,  Madge,  and  I'm  sorry  I  had 
to  leave  you.  But  I  got  'em!  A  tool  car  will  come  out  in 
an  hour." 

"An  hour!    You  found  a  telephone?" 

"A  devil  of  a  ways  down  the  valley  —  yes.  I  had  to  cut 
through  a  pasture  and  swamp.  There's  nothing  to  do  now 
but  wait." 

"Gordon!    I " 

"Oh,  don't  get  sore.  I  called  The  Elms,  too.  Miss  An 
derson  said  it  was  all  O.  K.  I  told  her  we'd  met  with  an 
accident  —  a  real  accident  —  and  if  she  didn't  believe  it,  she 
could  call  the  Mohawk  Garage  and  find  out  if  I  hadn't  sent 
there  for  aid." 

"You  called  Miss  Anderson?  She  said  it  would  be  all 
right  ?  On  your  honor  ?" 

"On  my  honor !" 

He  lurched  up  into  the  machine  and  Madelaine  had  to 
make  room  for  him  in  the  single  seat. 

"Mind  cigarette  smoke?"  he  asked.  "It'll  keep  off  the 
mosquitoes." 

The  girl  was  greatly  troubled.  She  wished  she  could 
believe  that  when  Gordon  swore  "on  his  honor,"  it  was  his 
honor. 

"Great  out  here  in  the  country,  this  time  o'  night,  ain't 
it?"  observed  the  fellow,  idly  turning  the  impotent  gas  and 
spark  levers  beneath  the  wheel. 

"How  far  was  it,  Gordon,  to  the  house  where  you 
telephoned  ?" 

"Oh,  I  dunno.  Couple  of  miles,  I  guess.  Forget  it, 
Madge !  Too  dark  now  for  you  to  make  it  through  all  that 
bog,  anyhow." 

Gordon  twisted  his  body  around  and  rested  one  arm 
along  the  seat-back  behind  her. 

"Did  you  tell  the  garage  men  very  explicitly  where  we 
were  stalled?" 

"Sure  I  did!     What's  biting  you,  Madge,  anyhow?" 

"How  did  you  describe  it  ?    Just  where  are  we  ?" 

"On  the  Shutesbury  road,  about  eight  miles  above  Am- 
herst." 

"How  far  is  it  back  to  the  main  road?" 


FIRST  COMPLICATIONS  127 

"Say,  Madge !  Are  you  afraid  to  wait  here  with  me  just 
because  there's  no  houses  in  sight?" 

"Afraid?  Oh,  no,  Gordon.  I'm  not  afraid  of  you  in 
the  least." 

"Then  I  wish  you'd  cut  out  the  catechism." 

The  girl  bit  her  lip  and  slapped  at  a  murderous  mosquito 
on  her  wrist.  She  drew  the  sweater  coat  tighter  about  her 
and  started  that  wait.  She  was  glad  she  had  her  purse  in 
her  sweater-coat  pocket.  Gordon  smoked  his  cigarette  to 
the  final  puff  and  sighed  philosophically  as  he  lighted  an 
other.  He  restored  his  arm  along  the  back  of  the  seat.  It 
grew  darker. 

"Madge,"  said  he,  "did  you  know  —  honestly !  —  you're 
one  of  the  swellest  girls  I  ever  ran  across !" 

"Please  don't  let's  have  any  cheap  flirting,  Gordon.  I'm 
bothered  enough  as  it  is,  by  this  predicament  you've  forced 
upon  me." 

"I've  forced  upon  you !  Madge,  if  I  didn't  have  a  whale 
of  a  lot  of  patience,  you'd  certainly  get  my  goat.  Here  you 
are,  away  out  here  in  this  God-forsaken  spot  alone  with  me 
in  the  dark,  and  you  act  as  if  we  were  in  the  middle  of  Main 
Street,  Springfield,  with  a  whole  flock  of  cops  looking  on !" 

"Just  what  do  you  mean  to  infer  by  that,  Gordon?  Is 
there  any  reason  for  me  to  expect  anything  but  the  most 
correct  conduct  from  you?" 

"You  can't  go  provoking  and  tantalizing  a  fellow  and  ex 
pect  him  to  remain  a  dummy  —  forever !" 

"Meaning  just  what,  Gordon.    You  may  speak  plainly." 

"Aunt  Gracia  ought  to  have  wised  you  to  a  few  things. 
Then  you'd  try  to  be  more  agreeable." 

"Your  Aunt  Gracia  has  'wised  me  to  a  few  things'  as  you 
so  crudely  term  it.  Which  is  why  I'm  not  afraid  of  you 
in  the  least." 

"Madge,  let's  cut  this  out !  I've  got  a  rotten  temper  and 
I  know  it.  Sometimes  it's  a  devil  of  a  job  to  hang  on  to  it. 
So  let's  talk  of  pleasanter  things.  This  breakdown  gives  me 
just  the  chance  I've  wanted  for  a  darn  long  time  —  the 
chance  to  talk  about  you !  Madge,  look  here !  I  might  as 
well  get  it  out  of  my  system  right  off  the  bat  and  have  it 
done  for  good  and  all.  Madge,  honest-to-God,  I  love 


you 


"Gordon!" 


128  THE  FOG 

"Oh,  never  mind  the  high-horse  stuff!  It's  no  crime  for 
a  fellow  to  love  a  girl " 

"No,  but  it's  a  contemptible  thing  to  intrigue  one  into 
a  dilemma  where  she  must  listen  to  your  insults  whether 
she  cares  to  or  not !" 

"Insults !" 

"Very  much  so,  Gordon.   If  you  were  a  gentleman " 

"Lookit,  Madge !  Do  you  know  what  I  could  do  to  you, 
if  I  wanted?" 

"Yes.  Being  stronger  physically,  there  are  many  things 
you  could  do  to  me  —  if  you  wanted.  The  question  is,  would 
you  ?  I  hardly  think  you  would " 

"Wouldn't  I,  though?  I  know  this  game!  I've  played 
it  before !" 

It  was  a  reckless  assertion  but  it  escaped  before  Gordon 
gave  it  thought. 

His  worldly  wisdom  had  been  gained  through  contact 
with  femininity  whose  motto  was :  "Treat  me  rough,  kid, 
—  treat  me  rough!"  He  believed  a  woman  enjoyed  being 
"mauled",  even  though  she  protested;  that  the  man  ulti 
mately  won  who  had  the  nerve  to  play  out  his  hand.  And 
he  had  never  been  seriously  called  to  account  for  indiscre 
tions  to  date.  Madelaine's  attitude  was  cool  dare  —  a  chal 
lenge  —  or  he  so  assumed.  He  proceeded  to  accept  that 
challenge  —  to  show  her  what  unleashed'  male  strength 
could  do. 

Laughing  coolly,  the  lad's  arm  closed  tightly  around  Made 
laine's  shoulders.  His  left  hand  caught  her  two  wrists  and 
held  them  firmly.  He  pulled  the  girl's  face  toward  him.  He 
kissed  her  —  as  much  and  as  long  as  he  pleased. 

Madelaine  stiffened  as  she  might  have  taken  a  blow  she 
could  not  avoid.  She  did  not  attempt  to  fight  back.  She 
did  not  try  to  scream,  to  struggle,  to  excoriate  him,  to  claw 
at  his  eyes.  She  endured  the  profanation  until  the  boy's 
temper  was  appeased.  He  could  not  hold  her  so  always.  His 
own  position  was  too  contorted.  The  moment  his  iron 
grip  was  loosened,  she  pushed  open  the  car  door  and  was 
over  its  edge  in  a  flash.  Down  into  the  soggy,  fern-choked 
ditch  where  the  water  trickled  she  jumped,  falling  on  knees 
and  hands.  Her  face  was  scratched.  But  she  struggled 
up  and  darted  around  the  rear  of  the  car. 

Gordon  knew  she  must  go  that  way  and  on  the  opposite 


FIRST  COMPLICATIONS  129 

side  he  waited.  His  lips  were  laughing  but  his  face  was 
white.  He  had  struck  a  shin-bone  in  scrambling  from  the 
machine  to  capture  her  and  the  pain  was  maddening.  As 
well  be  killed  now  for  a  sheep  as  a  lamb!  He  caught  the 
girl  roughly  by  her  left  shoulder  and  almost  pulled  her  from 
her  feet  as  he  yanked  her  toward  him. 

Never  for  an  instant  was  Madelaine  confused.  Without 
a  word  she  bent  and  scooped  a  handful  of  sand.  Squarely 
in  the  young  man's  features  she  threw  it,  —  in  his  eyes,  his 
nostrils,  his  half -opened  mouth. 

Gordon  emitted  a  hoarse  bellow  and  loosed  her.  In  that 
instant  the  girl  darted  away  down  the  road,  into  the  woodland 
shadow,  back  in  the  direction  from  which  they  had  come. 

Gordon  spat  out  mouth fuls  of  the  grit  and  yowled  his 
curses.  But  the  stuff  in  his  eyes  was  blinding.  It  gouged 
and  seared  his  eyeballs,  cutting  and  inflaming  the  lids  so 
that  a  great  wash  of  tears  coursed  down  his  face,  streaking 
ft  ludicrously.  He  groped  his  way  to  the  car  and  sank  on 
the  running  board.  Securing  his  handkerchief  he  swabbed 
his  eyes. 

He  was  fifteen  minutes  clearing  his  sight.  He  lit  the  jets 
in  the  big  brass  head  lamps,  cranked  the  car,  scratched  the 
varnish  viciously  backing  it  into  the  brambles  to  turn  it 
around,  then  started  after  Madelaine. 

He  knew  it  to  be  four  or  five  miles  back  to  the  main  high 
way.  Madelaine  could  not  yet  have  covered  the  distance. 
So  the  big  reflectors  lighted  the  cloistered  woods  several 
hundred  feet  ahead  and  a  cloud  of  ghostly  dust  hung  low 
in  his  rear. 

Madelaine,  fleeing  along  the  shadowed  wood-road,  heard 
and  saw  the  machine  coming  behind,  before  it  made  the 
turn.  She  darted  into  a  copse  of  willows  and  hid  there  until 
it  passed,  Gordon  low  above  the  wheel,  one  hand  holding 
his  handkerchief  to  his  face.  So  he  missed  her,  ultimately 
reaching  the  Amherst  highway  in  another  fit  of  black  rage 
and  disappointment. 

It  was  after  nine  o'clock  when  Madelaine  emerged  from 
the  wood.  She  saw  the  valley  and  its  main  highway  ghostly 
in  the  starlight  before  her.  Far  to  the  north  an  electric 
car  was  coming,  —  bobbing  up  and  down  on  the  uneven 
roadbed.  She  climbed  a  low  fence  on  the  south  and  ran 
swiftly  across  the  hay  stubble  in  a  diagonal  direction.  With 


130  THE  FOG 

deer-like,  gymnastic  suppleness  she  covered  the  distance. 
Into  the  highway  she  finally  stumbled,  hair  fallen  free  and 
lungs  distressed.  But  the  electric  car  was  still  far  down  the 
line.  She  had  time  to  recover  her  breath,  cleanse  her 
scratched  face,  and  arrange  hair  and  clothing  before  the  car 
worked  its  rocking  way  toward  her. 

No  one  could  detect  in  the  pretty,  flushed  girl  who  boarded 
that  trolley  the  recent  victim  of  a  near-assault  in  the  woods 
to  the  eastward. 

The  car  went  through  to  Holyoke.  Madelaine  remained 
aboard.  While  waiting  to  secure  a  Springfield  connection, 
she  slipped  into  a  High  Street  drug  store  and  called  Mrs. 
Anderson.  As  she  now  suspected,  Gordon  had  not  'phoned 
The  Elms.  Mrs.  Anderson  was  informed  that  she  need  not 
expect  her  pupil  back  that  evening,  as  Madelaine  had  left 
suddenly  for  Springfield.  Then  Madelaine  called  her  mother 
but  her  trolley  arrived  before  she  had  secured  her  number. 

Gordon  left  his  auto  on  the  main  road,  extinguished  its 
lamps  and  went  back  toward  the  woods  afoot,  hoping  to 
encounter  his  nimble  foster -cousin. 

"All  right,  you  little  wildcat,"  he  snapped  as  he  returned 
to  his  machine  an  hour  later.  "Get  lost  if  you  want!  But 
believe  me,  next  time  I  get  you  alone,  it'll  be  where  there's 
no  sand  to  throw  in  my  eyes.  A  catty  woman's  dirty  trick ! 
We'll  seel" 


CHAPTER  XIII 

GOD   AND  THINGS 


A  favorite  retreat  for  most  of  the  Paris  boys  in  those 
days  was  the  region  known  as  "down  the  river."  From  the 
Process  Works  dam  to  the  mill  pond  at  Hastings  Crossing 
flowed  a  wide,  smooth  body  of  water  between  indolent,  pas 
toral  hills  and  fern-clogged,  wooded  shores  musty  with 
swamp  bog  or  rotting  second-growth. 

Often  Nathan  and  I  borrowed  Pete  Collins'  old  red  scow, 
let  the  current  carry  us  dreamily  down-stream  in  the  after 
glow,  to  work  our  way  slowly  homeward  under  the  stars. 
The  hills,  mist-haunted,  were  exotic  in  those  late  evening 
hours.  Trees  in  the  silhouetted  woods  rose  weird  against 
the  sky.  It  was  not  difficult  to  imagine  ourselves  back  in 
Neolithic  ages,  —  those  trees  rising  out  of  decaying  fens, 
with  outlandish  shapes  wallowing  in  the  bogs  along  the  shore. 

They  were  pleasant,  never-to-be-forgotten  nights,  —  those 
trips  down  the  river.  To  the  dull,  rhythmic  knock  of  oars 
in  creaky  oarlocks,  and  the  drip  of  warm  water  as  we  dis 
turbed  the  far-flung  expanse  of  fallen  stars,  we  talked  of 
many  things.  Our  elders  might  have  smiled  if  they  had 
heard.  But  then,  if  our  elders  could  have  heard,  we  would 
never  have  given  those  long,  long  thoughts  expression. 

One  sultry  sunset  we  had  gone  down  the  river  and  were 
opposite  Haskell's  clearing  on  our  return,  when  Nathan, 
who  was  lying  along  the  boat's  bottom,  with  arms  behind 
his  head,  remarked  in  his  slow,  meditative  way: 

"Billy  —  did  you  ever  wonder  about  the  stars?" 

"Not  especially.    What  about  the  stars  ?"  I  asked. 

"Did  you  ever  imagine  you  were  God,  away  above  all 
the  suns  and  worlds,  looking  down  now  and  then  at  the 
earth?  It  would  be  an  awful  small  place,  the  earth  now, 
wouldn't  it?" 


132  THE  FOG 

"I  suppose  it  would,"  I  agreed. 

The  boy  was  silent  for  several  minutes.  Then  he  con 
tinued  : 

"If  some  of  those  stars  are  suns  —  like  I  read  in  a  book  a 
while  back  —  and  each  sun  has  its  worlds  revolving  about 
it  too,  the  earth's  only  an  awful  small  speck  in  a  great  big 
space,  isn't  it,  Billy?  It  can't  be  anything  else!" 

"Well,  and  what  if  it  is?" 

"If  the  earth's  only  an  awful  small  speck  in  a  great  big 
space,  think  how  much  smaller  we  livin'  people  must  show 
up  —  down  here  on  it.  I  don't  mean  in  size,  Billy,  I  mean 
importance.  Well,  then,  if  you  were  God,  away  off  up  in 
the  heavens,  what  would  one  little  earth  like  this  amount  to, 
anyhow?  Still  less,  what  would  any  one  person  or  persons 
amount  to  —  you  and  me,  for  instance?  If  you  or  I  wanted 
to  go  to  the  devil,  be  just  as  bad  as  we  pleased,  do  anything 
we  wanted,  what  really  big  difference  would  it  make?  Do 
you  know,  Billy,  I  don't  believe  God  gives  any  single  person 
half  so  much  attention,  or  cares  half  so  much  what  becomes 
of  him,  as  a  lot  of  grown  folks  try  to  make  out.  It's  just 
conceit.  That's  the  word,  Billy;  conceit!  Men  like  my 
father,  for  instance !  They  get  the  idea  that  God's  a  whole 
lot  like  themselves.  They  think  he's  got  the  time  and  pa 
tience  to  go  sneakin'  around  watching  for  folks  doing  things 
they've  been  told  not  to  do.  But  somehow,  when  I  lie  out 
in  a  boat  like  this  and  think  about  the  stars,  I  sort  of  see 
things  different.  Myself,  for  instance.  And  the  minute  I 
go  back  home  and  listen  to  Pa,  I  get  my  proportion  all 
twisted.  My  sins  are  all  big  and  important  again." 

"But  the  Bible  says  the  hairs  of  our  heads  have  all  got 
numbers  on  'em,"  I  defended.  "And  no  one  goes  out  and 
shoots  an  English  sparrow  but  what  God  sees  it  when  it 
starts  kicking." 

"I  don't  believe  it,  Billy!  Because  if  God  did  know  the 
numbers  of  the  hairs  on  everybody's  heads,  what  good  would 
it  do  Him?  And  what  if  He  does  know  when  some  one 
shoots  a  few  birds?  What's  the  use  of  Him  losing  sleep 
over  tiny,  foolish  things  like  those  when  it's  lots  more  im 
portant  to  keep  that  frail,  pretty  evening  star  hung  up  there 
in  space?  Seems  to  me  there's  too  many  folks  want  to 
make  God  a  cranky  old  man,  always  finding  fault  with  peo 
ple  because  they  don't  do  things  His  way  —  or  a  bookkeeper 


GOD  AND  THINGS  133 

like  old  Joe  Nevins  at  the  knitting  mills  who  almost  wrecks 
the  place  if  he  finds  two  cents  off  in  his  balance." 

"And  what  kind  of  a  person  do  you  think  God  is?  You 
believe  there  is  a  God,  don't  you  ?" 

"I  like  to  think  God  would  be  a  kind  old  man.  His  eyes 
would  laugh  when  people  take  Him  so  serious,  and  think 
He's  as  fussy  as  themselves.  And  He'd  have  long  white 
whiskers  that  it'd  be  lots  of  fun  to  pull  —  so  long  as  it  didn't 
hurt  Him  —  much." 

"I'm  glad  you  believe  there  is  a  God  anyway,"  I  told 
Nathan,  shocked  with  the  Use  majeste. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  haven't  said  I  really  do  yet.  Oh, 
Billy  —  we  don't  know  nothing  about  Him  —  not  a  single 
thing!  Then  why  is  it  we  keep  fooling  ourselves  that  we 
do?  Why  not  be  honest  and  say  we  don't?  If  there  is  a 
God,  don't  you  suppose  He's  wise  enough  and  big  enough 
so  He  knows  we  don't  know  nothing  about  Him?  Why  is 
it  such  a  sin  to  refuse  to  take  everything  on  faith,  like  old 
Doctor  Dodd  is  always  shouting  about,  on  Sundays?  We 
don't  think  it's  any  terrible  crime  to  'want  to  be  shown' 
in  business  or  science.  Why  should  it  be  in  religion?  If 
we're  honest  and  ready  to  believe  the  right  thing  when 
we're  shown  it  is  the  right  thing,  why  shouldn't  that  be 
enough  ?" 

"You  can  search  me!"  I  answered. 

"Well,"  continued  Nathan,  "I  don't  know  there  is  a  God 
—  and  if  there  is  and  He's  Pa's  kind  of  God,  I  don't  want 
anything  to  do  with  Him.  And  if  He  isn't  Pa's  kind  of  God, 
then  Pa's  all  wrong  about  all  the  other  things.  And  if  Pa's 
all  wrong  in  the  other  things,  then  he  doesn't  know  what  he's 
talking  about  in  the  first  place  and  I'm  not  obliged  to  be 
lieve  him  in  anything.  Oh,  Billy,  I  wish  I  could  live  in  a 
world  that  would  just  be  honest!  I  wish  I  could  live  in  a 
world  where  people  were  brave  enough  to  come  right  out 
and  confess  they  don't  know  anything  —  about  God  and  re 
ligion,  I  mean,  —  but  were  willing  to  be  shown." 

"Don't  you  believe  in  the  church  and  the  Cross  and  every 
thing, —  and  Jesus  Christ?" 

"I  don't  know  what  I  believe,"  Nat  repeated  angrily. 
"And  I  don't  believe  any  one  else  does,  either,  if  they'd  be 
honest.  I'm  sick  of  being  ordered  to  believe  things  whether 
I  do  or  not!" 


134  THE  FOG 

"But  if  you  don't  believe  in  the  church  and  the  Cross  and 
everything,  you'll  go  to  hell.  The  Bible  says  so  ?" 

"I  don't  believe  there  is  a  hell,"  snapped  Nathan.  "Every 
body  tells  us  hell's  a  place  where  the  wicked  burn  forever 
and  ever.  Who's  the  wickedest  man  in  this  town?" 

"Why,  Jake  Pumpton  over  on  the  East  Road,  I  guess. 
Or  Mr.  Gridley,  he  swears  so  much !" 

"All  right !  Say  any  one  of  them !  Now  then,  you  know 
how  hot  the  furnace  fire  is  at  the  tannery  in  the  winter? 
Never  mind  how  rotten  and  wicked  old  Pumpton  or  Gridley 
are,  could  you  shove  'em  into  that  fire  and  see  'em  writhe 
and  shriek  and  burn?" 

"No!"  I  protested  weakly. 

"Then  you're  more  kind  and  merciful  than  God.  Yet 
you're  only  human.  According  to  the  Bible,  God's  worse 
than  you.  Because  He  would!  Could  you  love  anybody 
who'd  shove  a  live  man  into  the  tannery  furnace?  No  — 
of  course  you  couldn't!  And  if  God  does  things  like  that, 
you  couldn't  lore  Him  and  neither  could  I  or  any  one,  never 
mind  how  much  you  swore  you  could  —  or  did!  They're 
lying  when  they  say  so!  I'd  hate  and  loathe  a  God  like 
that  —  who'd  even  allow  such  a  place.  And  I'm  not  afraid 
to  say  so,  either.  So  I  don't  believe  there's  any  hell  because 
the  kind  of  God  who  made  that  pretty  evening  star  couldn't 
roast  folks  alive  any  more  than  you  or  I." 

"Well,  that  takes  an  awful  load  off  my  mind,  to  know 
there  ain't  a  hell,"  I  declared.  "Because  there's  lots  of  things 
I  like  about  Mr.  Pumpton  and  Mr.  Gridley  even  if  they  are 
Lost  Souls." 

Suddenly  Nat  made  a  gesture  of  despair : 

"Why?  Why?  Why  —  are  we  sent  into  this  world,  Billy? 
When  we  weren't  asked  if  we  wanted  to  come  into  it  in  the 
first  place,  why  are  we  scared  and  pounded  and  prohibited 
and  lambasted,  day  after  day  and  year  after  year,  made  to 
work,  or  get  sick,  or  get  well,  or  die  —  and  so  long  as  we 
say  things  with  our  mouths  —  we'll  be  saved,  and  if  we're 
honest  and  won't  say  'em,  we'll  be  sent  to  roast  in  everlasting 
fire.  Why  is  it,  Billy?  Why  is  it?" 

I  couldn't  answer.  Of  course  I  couldn't  answer.  But  I 
fancy  that  ghosts  of  the  Pharaohs  heard  and  echoed  Nathan's 
heart-cry  from  the  night-wind.  Isaiah  and  Socrates  and 
Napoleon  listened  and  shook  their  heads  sadly.  The  saints 


GOD  AND  THINGS  135 

and  the  prophets  sighed  from  the  far-flung  shadows  and  the 
infinite  hosts  of  the  dead  were  in  atonement  with  two  little 
boys  blinking  at  the  stars  from  a  river  scow  in  a  New  Eng 
land  summer  night. 

ii 

On  another  night  Nathan  asked: 

"Did  you  ever  think  about  your  marriage,  Billy,  and 
wonder  what  day  it  would  come  in  the  future,  and  where 
it  would  happen,  and  who  the  girl  was  to  be,  and  just  where 
she  is  and  what  she  happens  to  be  doing  right  this  minute?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered.    What  boy  —  or  girl  —  has  not  ? 

"A  queer  feeling  comes  over  me  at  times,  Billy.  Some 
where  ahead  in  life  it  seems  I'm  standing  in  a  great  church 
with  faces  as  far  as  I  can  see.  There's  millions  of  flowers, 
Billy,  and  soft  autumn  light  is  coming  in  at  a  window  on  the 
left.  The  music's  playing  so  it  makes  me  want  to  bawl  and 
everything's  wildly  beautiful  and  there's  laughter  and  love 
and  fragrance  all  around  me.  I  can  see  that  picture  awfully 
plain  at  times,  Billy.  Down  the  long  aisle  from  the  back 
there's  a  woman  in  white  coming  toward  me  —  the  most 
beautiful  woman  in  all  the  world  —  really  beautiful,  Billy, 
not  because  I'm  in  love  with  her  and  she  looks  that  way  to 
me.  That's  my  wedding  day,  Billy  —  and  it's  fine  and  grand. 
Do  you  ever  picture  yours  that  way  ?" 

"Somethin'  like  it,"  I  answered.  "Only  mine's  in  a  house 
at  night  so  my  w-w-wife  and  I  can  sneak  off  in  the  dark 
and  not  get  our  hats  busted  with  old  shoes.  They  threw 
shoes  at  Matty  Henderson's  weddin'  and  broke  the  win 
dows  in  the  hack  and  the  horses  ran  away  and  tipped  over 
a  banana  stand." 

ill 

Edith  Forge  was  growing  along  with  Nathan,  but  saucer- 
eyed  and  awkward.  At  school  they  nicknamed  her  "Yard 
sticks"  and  the  insinuation  made  her  furious.  Nevertheless, 
despite  her  ungainliness,  she  was  the  worst  "boy-struck" 
girl  in  town. 

The  day  that  she  was  twelve  and  Johnathan  came  upon 
her  giggling  with  an  unknown  boy  in  an  empty  Sunday- 


136  THE  FOG 

school  room,  the  sex  prohibition  went  promptly  into  effect 
for  Edith  also.  But  between  Nathan  and  his  sister  was  this 
difference:  a  certain  sense  of  self -discipline  and  proclivity 
toward  law,  order  and  obedience,  strong  in  the  boy,  was 
utterly  lacking  in  the  girl.  She  possessed  instead  a  "terrible 
temper."  She  didn't  propose  to  forego  the  most  interesting 
subject  on  earth,  Boys,  not  a  little  bit.  She  "had  a  tantrum" 
and  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  her  life  Johnathan  Forge 
thrashed  her.  Thereupon  —  when  the  neighborhood  had 
been  duly  edified  and  quieted  —  Edith  went  promptly  into 
illicit  alliance  with  the  brother. 

"You  help  me  to  sneak  out  and  I'll  help  you!"  she  bar 
gained. 

In  her  studies,  Edith  had  the  academic  mentality  of  a 
child  of  eight.  But  at  thirteen  she  knew  how  to  dance  bet 
ter  than  that  "questionable"  Miss  La  Mott,  the  village 
teacher.  And  at  fourteen  Edith  was  insisting  that  school 
would  never  do  her  any  good  anyhow,  and  she  wanted  to 
go  to  work  "sticking  eight-point"  in  the  local  newspaper 
office  "to  buy  herself  some  rags  that  looked  decent." 

Her  mother  prevailed  upon  her  to  stay  in  school  by  the 
compromise  of  filching  money  from  the  father's  trousers 
after  he  had  retired.  They  tore  holes  in  the  man's  pockets 
so  he  would  believe  he  lost  the  money.  The  petty  loot  went 
to  purchase  ribbons,  waists,  high-heeled  shoes  and  two- 
dollar  bouquets  from  Higgins's  greenhouse  for  Edith  to 
wear  to  twenty-five-cent  parties. 

Early  in  the  girl's  life  it  was  expected  that  ultimately  Edith 
would  "marry  money."  That  was  quite  the  natural  and 
rational  solution  for  every  conjugal  and  domestic  woe; 
Edith  must  marry  money. 

Not  that  Edith  especially  merited  the  good  fortune  of 
marrying  money.  Simply  that  if  Edith  were  thus  clever 
enough  to  land  a  husband  of  means,  the  girl's  family  might 
turn  parasites  and  dip  their  penurious  hands  into  son-in- 
law's  golden  pile. 

It  is  always  a  daughter  or  a  sister  whom  a  family  hold 
up  when  it  wants  funds.  Never  conceded,  yet  always  rec 
ognized,  when  a  boy  of  means  marries  a  girl  without  means, 
he  likewise  marries  her  family.  What  are  blood  ties  for? 
Why  else  have  we  daughters^  being  poor  in  purse  as  well  as 
in  spirit? 


GOD  AND  THINGS  137 

Of  course  Edith  would  have  nothing  to  give  such  a  wealthy 
husband  but  her  bovine  body ;  the  mind  of  the  girl  is  always 
a  thing  passed  over.  So  Edith's  education,  begun  at  twelve 
by  a  work-gnarled,  disappointed,  narrow-visioned  mother, 
had  solely  to  do  with  making  her  body  attractive  and  plan 
ning  what  would  be  done  with  the  Unknown's  cash  when 
it  was  secured. 

Edith  "met  boys"  at  school,  she  "met  boys"  at  church; 
she  also  "met  boys"  on  the  streets.  Half  the  parents  in  town 
at  some  time  or  other  took  note  of  those  clandestine  meet 
ings  and  opined  wrath  fully,  "If  that  Forge  girl  was  mine, 
I'd  lambaste  her  good  and  plenty,"  well  knowing  they  would 
do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Because  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
other  parents,  Edith's  sex  proclivities  would  probably  have 
been  diverted  into  normal,  healthy  channels. 

Edith  "never  did  a  stroke  of  work  at  home."  It  was  Mrs. 
Forge's  contention  that  daughter  must  be  "saved"  from  it 
and  not  get  her  hands  all  hard  and  red  or  her  face  lined  with 
premature  care,  or  she  wouldn't  be  attractive  to  Money. 

So  Mrs.  Forge  "slaved  and  drudged"  and  was  always  too 
tired  at  night  to  go  anywhere  or  do  anything  but  retire  into 
the  front  room  and  rock  in  the  dark.  Edith,  like  the  Dresden 
Doll,  toiled  not,  neither  did  she  spin.  She  fussed  and  fumed 
in  the  morning  and  was  always  late  to  school.  She  "never 
ate  her  meals"  properly  at  noon,  and  after  school  she  was 
either  off  on  the  edge  of  town,  fire-playing  with  her  latest 
short-trousered  "catch,"  or  sprawled  on  the  couch  devour 
ing  Charlotte  Braeme,  Bertha  M.  Clay  or  Laura  Jean  Libby. 
At  fourteen  she  knew  more  than  most  women  know  on  their 
wedding  night  and  what  she  didn't  know  she  was  reasonably 
willing  to  learn. 

So  Edith  whiled  away  the  shining  hours  around  the  calen 
dar  and  Johnathan  Forge  ruled  over  a  painfully  moral  house 
hold. 

It  is  notable,  however,  that  his  moral  responsibility  to 
God  for  Edith's  soul  didn't  cause  him  a  quarter  of  the  fuss 
he  made  over  Nathan's. 

IV 

Of  etiquette  in  the  Forge  home  or  manners  at  the  Forge 
table  there  were  none.  Etiquette  was  snobbish,  "putting 


138  THE  FOG 

on  airs."  "Manners"  were  something  to  be  displayed  largely 
for  the  edification  of  company.  The  only  time  the  Forges 
were  scrupulously  polite  in  the  privacies  of  the  family  circle 
were  when  they  were  angry  at  each  other. 

Mrs.  Forge  railed  at  times  about  her  children  eating  too 
fast  or  fleeing  the  table  without  folding  their  napkins.  When 
they  wanted  a  helping  of  food,  they  were  supposed  to  say 
"Please"  and  "Thank  you",  and  on  quitting  the  board  to 
say  "Excuse  me."  But  as  the  parents  never  observed  these 
niceties  themselves,  practice  by  the  children  was  rather  su 
perficial,  —  and  Mrs.  Forge's  despair. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  Johnathan,  the  fact  re 
mained  that  "he  did  relish  his  vittles."  "Good  food  and 
plenty  of  it"  was  his  motto.  So  it  became  a  matter  for  spe 
cial  domestic  citation  to  "see  who  could  eat  the  most",  not 
ably  at  Sunday  dinner,  Thanksgiving  or  Christmas.  A 
monstrous  appetite  was  a  sign  of  health  and  virility  and 
a  distended  stomach  more  to  be  desired  than  gold  —  yea, 
than  the  gold  of  the  caliphs.  Roast  beef  and  boiled  pota 
toes,  corned  beef  and  cabbage,  anything  that  afforded  inward 
bulk,  therefore,  were  favorite  and  familiar  dishes  on  the 
Forge  menu. 

Johnathan's  favorite  dinner  pleasantry  was  wiping  his 
mouth  on  the  tablecloth  as  a  coy  rebuke  to  his  wife  for  for 
getting  the  napkins. 

During  the  progress  of  the  meal,  knives,  forks  and  spoons 
sprawled  all  over  the  cloth  or  against  dishes,  and  the  clatter 
of  china  and  silver  exceeded  the  cutlery  music  from  twenty 
tables  at  a  church  supper. 

The  mother  was  ever  in  hot  water  because  Edith  only 
"nibbled  at  her  food"  and  Nathan  "washed  his  down  with 
water."  After  the  meal,  like  a  gorged  python,  Johnathan 
leaned  back  and  picked  and  prodded  his  mouth  for  five  or  ten 
minutes  with  a  huge  toothpick. 

In  allied  domestic  functions  the  Forges  followed  suit. 
Sometimes  on  Saturday  nights  the  family  bathed.  Some 
times  it  did  not  bathe.  It  all  depended  on  whether  Mrs. 
Forge  was  energetic  enough  to  "heat  the  water." 

The  household  ran  on  no  schedule.  Nothing  could  be 
kept  in  its  place  because  nothing  had  a  place  in  which  it 
could  be  kept.  Edith  particularly  was  the  worst  offender. 
Her  bedroom  resembled  the  pathway  of  a  Missouri  cyclone 


GOD  AND  THINGS  139 

through  a  rummage  sale  until  her  mother  "found  time  to 
pick  up",  about  once  in  two  or  three  weeks. 

Clothes  and  shoes  were  bought  and  worn  until  they  were 
worn  out.  Then  more  were  grudgingly  bought  and  worn 
until  they  were  worn  out  also.  Excepting  Edith's. 

Johnathan  boasted  —  mostly  to  his  wife  and  children  — 
that  he  and  his  family  were  solid  and  substantial;  you  al 
ways  knew  "just  where  to  find  him."  No  stuck-up  notions 
or  fancy  fairs  to  the  Forges.  People  like  themselves  were 
the  backbone  of  the  nation. 


Once,  at  Christmas,  the  children,  imbued  with  the  holiday 
spirit,  wanted  a  tree.  A  tree  was  easily  procured  by  Nathan 
and  hauled  home  on  his  sled.  Mrs.  Forge  and  Edith  strung 
popcorn  and  made  paper  chains.  Johnathan,  in  a  spirit  of 
holiday  generosity,  gave  his  wife  five  dollars.  The  children 
got  a  dollar  apiece  with  which  to  buy  presents. 

Mrs.  Forge  bought  a  much-needed  underskirt  with  most 
of  her  money,  knitting  the  children  mufflers  and  keeping 
her  purchases  down  to  a  few  pathetic  gifts  in  the 
local  "five  and  ten."  She  searched  long  for  a  gift  for  John 
athan.  She  finally  chose  a  little  painted  picture  of  a  scene 
in  the  Bay  of  Naples,  Vesuvius  smoking  in  the  background. 
She  said  it  was  "so  pretty."  The  gifts  made  a  rather  thin 
exhibit  on  the  tree. 

Christmas  morning,  when  the  tree  was  denuded,  John 
athan  got  his  picture,  opened  it,  threw  back  his  head 
and  roared. 

Mrs.  Forge  had  hunted  a  long  time  for  Johnathan's  gift. 
The  little  picture  meant  a  blind,  vague,  piteous  groping 
after  Beauty  in  her  crushed  and  maltreated  soul.  It  was 
"so  pretty." 

But  Johnathan  failed  utterly  to  grasp  its  erudite  potenti 
alities.  He  spent  the  greatest  part  of  that  Christmas  morn 
ing  making  fun  of  the  picture.  He  got  a  string  and  hung 
it  around  his  neck,  sandwich-board  fashion.  He  said  he 
admired  his  wife's  tastes  in  frames;  he  had  a  rubber-heel 
placard  at  his  shop  which  would  fit  it  exactly. 

Mrs.  Forge,  who  had  parted  with  seventy-five  cents  which 
she  might  better  have  used  for  stockings,  finally  fled  the 


140  THE  FOG 

room  in  tears.  During  the  ensuing  year,  the  picture  was 
facetiously  referred  to  as  "Mother's  Volcano." 

Johnathan,  by  the  way,  gave  his  wife  a  new  bread 
board  and  Edith  a  fancy  calendar. 

Nathan  received  a  small,  leather-bound  copy  of  the  New 
Testament. 

It  was  a  red-letter  Christmas! 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CONSIDER  THE  WORM 


By  the  time  he  had  reached  seventeen  Nathan  had  at 
tained  what  it  too  often  requires  discouraging  years  for 
older  persons  to  negotiate. 

He  had  lifted  his  handicapped,  browbeaten  young  shoul 
ders  above  the  drab-colored  dead  level  of  village  mediocrity. 

Fourteen  of  his  poems  had  been  printed  intermittently 
as  "boxed"  features  on  the  front  page  of  the  Daily  Telegraph. 

The  village,  therefore,  had  been  forced  to  admit  —  grudg 
ingly  to  be  sure,  but  nevertheless  to  admit  —  that  if  he  kept 
it  up  long  enough,  and  nothing  stopped  him,  and  the  quality 
of  his  verse  showed  improvement  instead  of  deterioration, 
and  no  one  surpassed  him,  and  the  Telegraph  kept  out  of 
bankruptcy,  and  the  Federal  constitution  wasn't  amended  so 
as  to  prohibit  poetry  altogether  —  somewhere  down  long  vis 
tas  of  future  years  he  might  possibly  be  expected  to  ap 
proach  a  fair-to-middlin'  resemblance  to  a  near-celebrity. 

These  qualifying  adverbs  and  adjectives  constitute  an 
attempt  at  faithful  reproduction  of  the  community's  attitude 
toward  budding  talent.  Paris,  like  all  Vermont,  like  all 
New  England,  like  small  towns  all  over  the  planet,  was 
doggedly  determined  that  a  loophole  should  be  left,  in  fact 
several  loopholes,  so  that  in  case  of  failure  and  fizzle  it 
might  be  in  that  crushing  position  to  retort,  "I  told  you  so!" 

To  bet  on  a  local  son's  ability  to  rise  above  the  common 
herd's  tenor  of  nothing-in-particular  and  have  the  wager 
turn  out  a  loss  was  more  to  be  deplored  than  a  failure  of 
the  nation's  credit  system.  The  grocery-store  and  barber 
shop  economists  could  blame  the  prevailing  administration 
for  the  latter,  but  for  the  former  there  would  be  no  one  to 
take  the  ignominy  but  themselves. 

It  was  only  natural  that  there  should  be  those  in  town 


142  THE  FOG 

who  had  no  patience  whatever  with  the  tone  of  Nathan's 
verse.  It  was  sickly,  sloppy,  moon-sighing  stuff,  that  sug 
gested  "dying  calves  with  their  mouths  full  of  mush." 

Another  element,  chiefly  recruited  from  the  young,  un 
married  set,  or  Raveled  Ends  of  Might-Have-Been  Ro 
mances,  clipped  out  the  boy's  verses  and  mailed  them  to 
sweethearts.  Or  they  pasted  them  in  scrapbooks  alongside 
clippings  from  the  Poet's  Corner  in  the  Boston  Sunday 
Globe. 

But  as  a  matter  of  genuine  enthusiasm,  the  bulk  of  the 
local  census  was  phlegmatic.  They  read  the  boy's  amateur 
ish  little  girl  rhymes  with  indifference,  waiting  for  it  to  be 
disclosed  "whether  that  mopey  Forge  young  one  was  a  darn 
bright  kid  or  a  goddam  fool." 

Yet  the  fact  remained  that  the  lad  was  getting  "published." 
And  every  effusion  carried  its  tuppence  worth  of  advertis 
ing.  Soon  the  town  was  forced  to  sit  up  and  take  notice. 
Some  of  the  best  of  Nat's  work  had  been  clipped  from  our 
smudgy,  homely,  country  sheet  and  been  copied  in  the  Spring 
field  Union  or  the  aforesaid  Boston  Globe. 

That  a  lethargic  exchange  editor  in  each  case,  hunting 
for  material  to  fill  odd  corners  with  "hay",  had  snipped  out 
the  verses  with  a  vast  and  pardonable  ennui,  spiked  them 
on  a  linotype  hook  and  forgotten  them,  was  immaterial,  even 
if  it  had  been  generally  known.  Paris  felt  duly  edified. 

The  effect  on  Johnathan  the  day  Uncle  Joe  Fodder,  the 
town  philosopher,  found  the  first  of  Nat's  poems  in  the 
Globe  and  advised  John  to  that  effect  was  as  amusing  as  it 
was  interesting. 

John  had  been  positive  his  boy's  propensity  for  poetry 
was  in  the  same  category  with  his  Abaddonic  proclivity  to 
ward  girls.  Realization  that  fame  was  being  forced  upon 
the  family  despite  his  dogged  assumption  to  the  contrary 
came  as  a  shock.  A  great  city  newspaper  had  printed  the 
name  of  a  Forge  and  circulated  the  same  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  copies!  What  could  Johnathan  do  in  the  face 
of  such  titanic  refutation  ?  Nothing  but  to  glow  in  his  heart 
that  the  celebrity  was  his  son  and  then  treat  the  said  celeb 
rity  as  his  own  personal  washpot. 

"I  guess  I  know  best  how  to  bring  out  talent  and  ability 
in  a  youngster,"  he  affirmed.  "Keep  'em  in  their  places  and 
give  'em  a  little  hardship  to  rise  above!  That's  the  thing 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  143 

that  makes  men.     Give  a  boy  encouragement  and  he  either 
gets  a  swelled  head  or  turns  out  a  mollycoddle." 

Besides,  what  encouragement  had  his  father  ever  given 
him? 

II 

Many  times  in  those  months  and  years,  I  saw  the  man  op 
posite  me  in  church  or  shop  and  studied  him.  But  there 
was  little  to  "study." 

It  puzzled  me  for  a  long  time  how  two  such  people  as 
Johnathan  and  Anna  could  remain  together  year  after  year 
in  any  such  loveless  connubiality  and  not  realize  its  prosti 
tution.  But  of  one  thing  I  am  convinced  absolutely:  John 
athan  was  no  hypocrite ;  up  to  the  time  of  Nathan's  mar 
riage  and  still  more  vital  events  yet  to  be  delineated,  the 
man,  however  narrow,  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions. 

Separating  from  a  woman  whom  he  had  once  married  and 
by  whom  he  had  received  children  —  even  if  not  divorcing 
her  —  was  not  only  heresy  and  against  all  ethics,  but  it  struck 
at  the  very  roots  of  society  and  nominated  him  for  the 
seventh  strata  of  the  bottomless  pit. 

All  marriages  were  made  in  heaven.  That  was  the  Alpha 
and  Omega  of  the  whole  business.  The  Bible  says  a  man 
shall  cleave  unto  his  wife  and  they  shall  be  one  flesh,  though 
they  fight  openly  from  New  Year's  to  Christmas  and  make 
the  home  life  of  growing  children  a  nerve-racking  hell.  You 
can't  get  back  of  the  Bible.  There  it  is  in  black  and  white. 
And  you  know  what  it  says  in  the  ending  of  Revelations 
about  daring  to  change  one  jot  or  tittle  of  Holy  Writ. 

If  there  were  unpleasantness  in  his  home,  it  was  the  wo 
man's  fault.  She  rebelled  against  the  hypothesis  that  he  was 
the  head  of  his  house,  the  arbiter  of  its  destinies,  the  party 
responsible  for  its  souls  and  bodies  to  God  and  State.  She 
spat  upon  the  verdict  of  St.  Paul :  "Wives,  submit  your 
selves  unto  your  husbands  as  unto  the  law  of  God."  She 
was  responsible  for  everything  wrong.  She  was  "under 
mining  Church  and  State."  She  was  a  sinner  from  wayback. 

The  man  totally  lacked  the  capacity  to  see  himself  in  any 
other  role  than  that  of  model  father,  husband,  citizen  and 
church  member. 

He  was  one  of  those  men  of  whom  it  may  truthfully  be 


144  THE  FOG 

said  that  he  took  life  seriously.  To  say  nothing  of  himself. 
To  associate,  disport  or  enjoy  himself  with  family  or  neigh 
bors  was  something  he  did  not  know  how  to  do.  He  couldn't 
have  taken  enjoyment  from  life  even  if  he  had  wanted.  It 
was  rather  pathetic. 

He  was  a  finished  product  of  his  own  philosophy  and 
never  saw  it.  His  father  had  succeeded  in  doing  in  him  ex 
actly  what  he  was  trying  to  do  in  Nathan.  Only  there  were 
leavening  and  countering  chromosomes  in  Nathan's  make-up 
ultimately  working  for  the  boy's  salvation  which  had  not 
been  Johnathan's  heritage. 

He  rarely  attended  any  church  or  village  function  unless 
admittance  was  free,  and  on  rare  occasions  when  the  circus 
came  to  Paris  and  he  consented  to  take  his  children,  he 
bought  no  admittance  to  performance  or  side  shows.  He 
taught  them  to  be  content  with  standing  off  in  the  back 
ground  and  "watching  people  make  fools  of  themselves." 

When  by  unavoidable  circumstance  he  was  forced  to  par 
ticipate  in  any  social  function  where  people  looked  on,  he 
either  did  so  with  an  awkward,  clumsy,  painful,  red- faced 
self -consciousness,  or  he  "tried  to  be  funny."  But  in  both 
cases  he  withdrew  into  innocuous  desuetude  as  quickly  as 
he  was  permitted.  Thereupon,  unless  the  affair  had  been 
directly  connected  with  religion,  he  carried  away  the  impres 
sion  that  he  had  been  a  "cut-up"  and  a  "card." 

Once,  just  once,  when  Edith  had  been  ten,  the  Forge 
home  had  been  opened  for  a  party.  But  on  that  occasion  he 
had  not  been  content  to  let  the  youngsters  work  out  their 
own  social  salvation.  It  had  devolved  upon  him  as  "master 
of  his  house"  and  "protector  of  his  children's  morals"  to 
place  himself  in  the  best  chair  in  the  front  room  and  preside 
over  the  progress  of  the  affair.  It  was  his  business  to  see 
that  no  kissing  games  were  played,  suggest  when  the  chil 
dren  had  applied  themselves  to  each  pastime  long  enough, 
inject  witty  criticisms  of  juvenile  deportment,  indicate  when 
it  was  time  for  the  refreshments  to  be  served  and  when  the 
hour  had  come  for  adjournment.  All  this  he  did  in  slippered 
feet,  with  hair  a  bit  rumpled  and  vest  unbuttoned.  On  the 
whole,  it  was  quite  a  responsibility. 

Vainly  his  wife  had  tried  to  spirit  him  out  and  away  so 
the  children  might  act  naturally  and  enjoy  themselves.  John- 
athan  was  indignant.  He  guessed  it  was  his  house.  His 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  145 

carpets  were  being  scuffed  out.  His  money  was  paying  for 
the  ice  cream  and  cake.  He  stayed. 

His  favorite  contribution  to  the  entertainment  when  the 
children  sat  around  like  little  wooden  puppets,  half  fright 
ened  to  death  by  the  Moloch  presiding  over  them,  was  the 
demand,  accompanied  by  an  indulgent  toe-tapping:  "Who 
can  tell  a  tunny  story  or  sing  a  funny  song  ?"  But  ten-year- 
olds  who  wanted  to  play  "Copenhagen"  or  "Drop  the  Pil 
low"  were  rather  deficient  in  the  matter  of  volunteering 
comic  anecdotes  or  rendering  humorous  ballads.  And 
whereas  Johnathan's  repertoire  was  rather  limited  along 
those  lines  also,  the  party  was  not  all  it  might  have  been. 

That  night  in  bed  an  exasperated  wife  "started  in  her 
same  old  tirade"  and  ended  her  excoriation  by  kicking  her 
loving  husband  in  the  shins.  Johnathan  exhibited  the  black 
and  blue  spot  to  Nathan  in  the  week  ensuing  to  prove  to 
the  son  that  his  father  had  married  a  virago.  There  never 
was  another  party. 

And  now  Nathan,  the  offspring  of  a  God-fearing  male 
and  an  unholy  female,  was  upsetting  all  his  father's  unas 
sailable  calculations  and  becoming  known  throughout  our 
part  of  New  England  as  a  celebrity.  Just  what  should 
Johnathan  do  about  it  ?  Not  being  in  a  position  to  do  much 
of  anything  about  it,  the  father  concluded  it  best  to  pursue 
a  policy  of  watchful  waiting. 

So  matters  drifted  —  with  Nathan  performing  rather  in 
definite  tasks  in  the  tannery,  the  vague  nature  of  which  both 
ered  his  father  not  a  little  bit,  but  which  nevertheless  brought 
in  six  dollars  a  week  —  until  the  disturbing  young  coot  "up 
and  wrote  'The  Pagans.'  " 

ill 

To  speak  truthfully,  our  prune-and-prism  community  re 
ceived  a  shock.  Sam  Hod,  proprietor  of  the  Telegraph,  un 
doubtedly  wanted  to  administer  a  shock.  Anyhow,  he  not 
only  printed  what  the  precocious  rhymster  had  composed 
but  called  attention  to  its  moral  excellence  in  his  editorial 
column  that  night. 


146  THE  FOG 


"THE  PAGANS 

"We  bought  two  slaves  on  the  Block  of  Life, 

Out-crying  the  bidders  all; 
Two  slaves  as  rare  as  the  maids  of  Punt, 

White-limbed  as  the  girls  of  Gaul. 
The  Pagan  bought  for  the  right  to  own, 

With  gold  that  he  could  not  miss 
While  I  bought  mine  for  the  right  to  love 

And  swapped  for  her  flesh  a  kiss. 

"We  pushed  our  slaves  from  the  auction  hall 

And  drove  them  along  Life's  street; 
We  jested  over  their  bodies  pink, 

The  pad  of  their  naked  feet. 
Ahmed  chained  his  to  a  black  floor  ring 

As  butt  for  his  brutal  fun, 
While  I  chained  mine  to  a  kitchen  range 

And  work  that  was  never  done. 

"The  Pagan's  slave  was  a  high-strung  lass 

And  fought  with  a  courage  rare ; 
But  broke  at  last  'neath  her  master's  whip 

And  pain  from  her  tortured  hair. 
Now  my  slave,  too,  was  a  high-strung  lass, 

And  so  —  for  my  right  was  clear  — 
I  broke  her  back  with  a  thankless  drudge 

And  a  baby  every  year. 

"The  Pagan  swore  that  his  slave  should  die 

By  slash  'cross  her  milk-white  throat, 
Her  body  sewed  in  a  sack  by  night 

Be  dropped  in  his  harem  moat. 
I  likewise  ordered  my  slave  should  die 

But  I  did  the  thing  with  art : 
I  ground  my  spleen  to  a  rapier  point 

And  stabbed  till  I  found  her  heart. 

"The  Pagan  slept  when  his  slave  was  dead, 

For  he  had  much  gold  to  spare; 
Next  day  he  went  to  the  market  place 

And  bought  with  a  better  care. 
But  when  my  slave  had  been  killed  with  wordi 

I  placed  at  her  head  a  stone: 
'Here  sleeps  the  one  that  I  loved  most  dear 

While  I  go  my  way  —  alone!' 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  147 

"We  bought  two  slaves  on  the  Block  of  Life, 

The  Pagan  and  I  one  day ; 
But  he  killed  his  with  a  short,  curved  sword, 

A  damued,  paganistic  way. 
My  slave  died  too,  but  a  Christian's  death, 

And  God  tells  me  all  is  well ; 
So  while  white  heaven's  ahead  for  me, 
The  Pagan  must  writhe  in  hell. 

" — NATHANIEL  FORGE. 
"Paris,  Vt.,  Sept.  25,  1906. 

It  should  not  be  difficult  to  understand  where  Nathan  de 
rived  material  or  satire  for  this  poem.  Neither  should  its 
reception  be  difficult  to  grasp  in  a  prudish  New  England 
community. 

"That  boy's  mind  is  becoming  positively  foul !"  cried  Mrs. 
Caleb  Gridley  when  she  had  found  the  paper  that  night  and 
then  dropped  it  as  though  it  were  hot.  "The  very  idea  of 
putting  such  a  thing  in  type !  What's  Mr.  Hod  thinking  of  ? 
Moral  excellence,  indeed!  I  thank  the  Lord  that  pure- 
minded  little  Bernice-Theresa  is  out  of  town  and  away  from 
it  all.  Her  sweet  morals  are  safeguarded  from  any  such 
youthful  depravity  as  that  Forge  boy  is  showing." 

Old  Caleb  secured  the  paper  and  read  the  verses  in  silence. 

"Oh,  I  dunno,"  he  answered  after  a  time.  Then  he  sat 
staring  into  space. 

Many  husbands  in  Paris  sat  staring  into  space  after  read 
ing  Nat's  poem  that  night.  A  few,  however,  did  not  get  the 
chance  to  stare  into  space. 

"Cost  me  twenty-five  dollars!"  growled  Artemus  Har 
rington  in  the  Smoke  Shoppe  Cigar  Store  later  that  evening. 
"My  wife  says  it  was  the  best  thing  she'd  ever  read  and  it 
would  do  a  heap  o'  men  around  town  good  to  read  it,  too. 
One  thing  led  to  another  and  we  ended  up  in  a  fight.  She 
made  me  'fork  over,'  and  she  sashayed  home  to  her  mother's." 

Cora  Whipple,  Nathan's  former  teacher,  declared  it  was 
bizarre,  but  nevertheless  Literature.  She  said  it  ought  to  be 
printed  in  all  the  best  magazines.  Her  prim  old-maid  sister 
called  it  the  height  of  obscenity  and  gave  the  Telegraph's 
editor  a  piece  of  her  mind  over  the  'phone,  ringing  off  be 
fore  Sam  had  the  chance  to  reply.  The  poem  set  the  town 
by  the  ears,  so  to  speak. 

"You  sure  can  pick  out  which  hubbies  love  their  wives  and 


148  THE  FOG 

which  women  ain't  happily  married  by  the  way  that  poetry 
sets  on  their  stummicks!"  observed  Uncle  Joe  Fodder. 
"B'dam  whether  I  think  the  kid  writ  it  himself  or  whether 
he's  got  some  old  person  coachin'  him.  But  believe  me,  if 
Sam  goes  on  printin'  the  likes  of  that  poem  he's  sure  goin' 
to  swell  his  subscription  list.  And  not  because  folks  want 
to  see  the  report  o'  the  tax  commissioners,  either." 

It  was  old  Doctor  Dodd  who  caused  the  direct  reaction 
on  Nathan,  however.  The  poem  —  particularly  the  last  two 
lines  —  perturbed  the  old  minister  grievously.  And  he  "took 
it  up  in  prayer  meeting"  that  evening. 

Johnathan  had  read  the  verses  shortly  after  supper  while 
waiting  for  the  drone  of  the  weekly  church  bell.  Nathan 
had  luckily  returned  downtown  before  the  carrier  boy 
tossed  a  Telegraph  on  the  Forge  veranda. 

The  father  sat  stupefied  for  a  moment,  after  bringing  the 
front  legs  of  his  chair  to  the  floor  with  a  clump.  Then  as 
the  "coat"  fitted  him  perfectly,  he  proceeded  to  put  it  on. 
He  left  the  house  without  speaking  and  wandered  through 
the  neighborhood,  hands  clasped  behind  his  back,  lips  set 
tightly. 

Reaching  the  church,  hoping  to  receive  comfort  and  con 
solation  from  the  service  in  this  latest  parental  "trial", 
Doctor  Dodd  "opened  up"  on  it.  And  the  father's  blood 
ran  icy  cold. 

The  minister's  subject  was  "Train  up  a  child  in  the  way 
he  shall  go,  and  when  he  is  old  he  will  not  depart  from  it." 
Every  person  in  that  vestry  knew  to  whom  and  what  the 
pastor  was  referring.  Every  face  was  turned  toward  the 
ashen  mask  that  was  Johnathan's  countenance  before  that 
discourse  ended. 

The  father  stared  stonily  ahead  until  the  minister  had 
finished.  Then  he  arose  and  "testified."  It  was  deathly 
quiet  in  the  prayer-meeting  room  as  Johnathan  concluded 
that  "testimony." 

Everybody  present  felt  "so  sorry"  for  poor  Brother  and 
Sister  Forge. 

IV 

Nathan  slunk  like  a  felon  through  the  back  streets  to  reach 
his  home.  He  knew  the  town  was  talking  about  his  poem. 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  149 

He  was  shy  of  praise  and  criticism  hurt  him.  Not  because 
it  was  criticism  but  because  it  usually  rested  on  some  one's 
disapproval.  The  last  thought  in  his  head  was  any  back 
fire  at  home  from  the  verses.  Consequently  he  was  puzzled 
when  on  reaching  the  Spring  Street  corner  he  saw  his  sister 
arise  from  the  steps  and  hurry  toward  him. 

"Natie !"  she  cried.    "Don't  go  in !    Run  and  hide !" 

"Hide!     What  for?" 

"Dad's  whopping  mad  over  what  you  had  in  the  paper  to 
night.  He's  laying  for  you  good." 

"Laying  for  me?" 

"He  thinks  you've  slammed  him  somehow,  for  the  fights 
he  has  with  Ma.  And  I  guess  the  minister  didn't  like  it 
either  and  jawed  him  about  it  in  prayer  meeting.  Anyway, 
Pa  came  in  as  white  as  a  ghost.  He  asked  for  you.  When 
Ma  said  you  was  still  out,  he  took  off  his  things  and  started 
pulling  down  all  the  curtains.  He  shoved  back  the  furni 
ture  and  went  and  got  the  strap.  Ma  wanted  to  know  what 
was  eating  him,  and  he  said  when  you  came  in  he  was  going 
to  give  you  the  darnedest  dressing  down  you'd  ever  got  in 
your  life." 

Nathan  sank  down  on  the  low  cement  wall  which  ran 
around  the  Granger  lawn. 

"And  how  did  Ma  take  it?" 

"Oh,  she  stood  up  for  you.  Not  because  she'd  read  the 
poetry  or  cared  a  hoot  what  you'd  said  in  it.  Just  because 
it  was  something  to  fight  about  with  Pa.  They  were  going 
it  hot  and  heavy  when  I  decided  to  sit  out  on  the  steps  and 
warn  you.  I've  got  to  go  back  before  they  miss  me,  so, 
listen!  You  hang  around  outside,  Natie,  and  if  Ma  talks 
him  out  of  it  or  he  gets  winded  and  goes  to  bed,  I'll  put 
a  lamp  in  my  upstairs  window  and  you'll  know  it's  a  sign 
to  sneak  in." 

Nathan  remained  seated  on  the  fence.  Once  or  twice  he 
cast  glances  toward  his  home,  fearing  to  go  in,  fearing  to 
remain  out  later.  He  looked  down  at  his  shoes,  worn, 
sloppy  and  unshined.  He  felt  supinely  small  in  the  ludicrous 
suit  he  wore,  an  old  one  of  his  father's.  His  hands  were 
soiled.  His  finger  nails  were  broken.  He  needed  a  bath, 
in  fact,  it  seemed  as  though  he  always  needed  a  bath.  He 
felt  grimy  and  seamy  and  prematurely  old. 

He  had  been  that  evening  in  the  Seaver  home..    Fred 


ISO  THE  FOG 

Seaver's  father  ran  a  meat  and  grocery  store  in  East  Main 
Street.  Fred  was  experimenting  with  electricity  and  Nat 
had  gone  over  to  inspect  his  apparatus.  But  it  had  not  been 
the  apparatus  which  had  most  interested  Nathan.  It  had 
been  the  Seaver  home. 

The  Seaver  home  had  hardwood  floors  and  all  the  rooms 
were  lighted  by  electric  chandeliers.  The  dining  room  had 
a  cozy  "dome"  above  the  table,  and  silver  sparkled  amid  cut 
glass  on  the  buffet.  The  Seaver  parlor  wasn't  "saved  for 
company."  It  was  open  all  the  time  and  in  one  corner  an 
open  fire  burned  cheerily.  The  Seavers  called  it  the  "living 
room."  There  were  bookshelves  between  the  windows  and 
a  soft-shaded  reading  lamp  on  the  center  table. 

In  the  Forge  home,  Johnathan  "roared  like  a  bull"  if  more 
than  one  gas  light  was  burned  at  once.  Out  from  the  west 
wall  of  the  Forge  kitchen  stuck  a  twelve-inch  gas  bracket 
with  a  single  Welsbach  burner.  It  was  a  white,  cheerless 
light  which  burned  unevenly.  Beneath  it  each  night  Johna 
than  tipped  back  his  plain  wooden  chair  and  read  his  Tele 
graph.  If  the  rest  of  the  family  cared  to  read,  they  "strained 
their  eyes"  or  waited  until  the  father  had  finished.  Nathan 
could  not  help  comparing  the  two  lamps,  —  the  difference  in 
homes  which  they  represented. 

The  Seaver  home  was  inviting,  restful.  In  the  Forge 
home,  clothes  were  always  piled  on  chairs  or  tables.  More 
ironed  clothes  were  usually  strung  on  a  wire  from  corner 
to  corner,  making  the  kitchen  atmosphere  stuffy.  The  sink 
was  always  filled  with  greasy  dishes.  The  faucet  dripped. 
There  were  crumbs  on  the  red  tablecloth  and  sugar  grains 
on  the  worn  linoleum. 

Nathan  had  compared  the  two  and  wished,  poor  boy,  that 
he  might  know  such  a  home  as  Fred  Seaver's.  He  thought 
of  it  now  as  he  sat  out  in  the  chill  September  night,  afraid 
to  enter  a  house  where  a  father  waited  to  flog  him. 

Of  one  thing  the  boy  was  grimly  resolved.  At  exactly 
the  moment  the  law  allowed  him  his  freedom,  he  would  find 
a  girl  somewhere  and  have  a  home  that  should  exhibit  some 
claim  toward  beauty,  cheerfulness  and  peace.  Who  the  girl 
might  be  was  immaterial.  To  flee  the  horrible,  fear-driven, 
Scripture-surfeited  place  he  had  known  from  earliest  boy 
hood  was  becoming  the  greatest  objective  in  existence.  But 
meanwhile,  what  should  he  do  ? 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  151 

The  question  answered  itself.  The  front  door  of  his 
father's  house  opened  and  Johnathan  himself  emerged.  He 
wore  hat  and  coat.  Down  the  steps  he  started  and  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  where  Nathan  waited.  Before  the 
boy  could  solve  the  mystery,  his  sister  appeared.  She  ran 
frantically  for  the  place  where  she  had  left  her  brother. 

"Natie!"  she  cried  hysterically.  "Natie  —  come  quick! 
Something's  happened  to  Ma!" 

Across  the  street  Nathan  leaped  and  into  the  dark  hall 
way.  He  bumped  into  a  door,  stumbled  over  a  chair,  reached 
the  kitchen. 

His  mother  was  seated  on  the  floor,  hammering  her 
gnarled  fists  crazily  upon  the  linoleum.  One  of  her  legs 
stuck  out,  uncovered,  from  beneath  her  body.  Her  spectacles 
were  off,  her  face  was  swollen  —  as  it  usually  was  swollen 

—  with  weeping. 

"She's  having  one  of  her  spells!"  cried  the  awe-struck 
sister.  "You'll  have  to  put  her  to  bed  —  or  do  something !" 
The  girl  spoke  as  though  they  were  gazing  down  on  a  strange 
biological  exhibit. 

Mrs.  Forge  was  only  letting  her  nerves  go  in  an  enjoyable 
fit  of  hysterics.  But  it  was  an  epochal  fit  of  hysterics.  She 
pounded  the  floor  and  she  kicked  her  heels.  She  tore  down 
her  hair  and  ripped  her  washed-out  blue  wrapper  from  her 
thin  shoulders,  leaving  soiled  underclothes  and  rusty,  broken 
corsets  exposed. 

"I'll  kill  myself!"  she  shrieked.  "I  will!  I  will!  I'll 
not  stand  it  another  day !  I'll  kill  myself !"  She  emphasized 
each  "will"  with  a  thump  of  her  tightly  clenched  fist  upon 
the  floor. 

"Doctor  Johnson  told  Pa  once  the  quickest  way  to  bring 
folks  out  of  a  'spell'  was  to  throw  cold  water  on  'em !"  sug 
gested  Edith.  "You  better  get  the  bucket,  Nat.  Give  her 
a  sloppin'  —  a  good  one!" 

But  Nat  could  not  "give  her  a  sloppin'."  He  was  sud 
denly  overwhelmed  with  pity. 

"Come,  mother,"  he  said.    "Let  me  help  you  to  bed !" 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  bed!  I  want  to  kill  myself!  And 
I  will!  I  will!  I  will!  Get  me  the  butcher  knife!  Edith! 

—  Nathan !     Get  the  butcher  knife !     Watch  your  mother 
kill  herself." 

Edith  started  to  cry.     Nathan  saw  something  should  be 


152  THE  FOG 

done  and  he  did  it.  He  stooped  and  picked  up  his  mother. 
Though  she  fought  and  clawed  his  face,  he  managed  it. 
Bidding  Edith  go  ahead  with  the  lamp,  he  carried  his  strug 
gling  mother  up  the  stairs  and  into  her  chamber.  There 
he  laid  her  on  the  bed. 

"Undress  her,  Edie,"  he  ordered.  "Get  her  into  bed  be 
fore  Pa  comes  back." 

"I  dassent,  Nat.    I'm  afraid." 

Nathan  locked  his  mother  into  the  bedroom,  first  making 
certain  there  was  nothing  about  the  chamber  with  which  she 
could  "do  anything  rash."  Then  he  went  back  down  the 
stairs. 

He  was  inclined  to  agree  with  an  oft-expressed  sentiment 
of  his  father's.  It  was  a  "hell  of  a  home." 

"Where  you  going,  Natie?"  cried  Edith.  "Don't  leave 
me  alone  with  her.  I'm  afraid,  I  say." 

"She  can't  get  oat,  unless  she  jumps  through  a  window, 
and  I  don't  aim  to  be  here  when  Pa  comes  back." 

"Where  you  going?" 

"I  dunno.     Just  out." 

Nathan  started  for  the  hallway.  But  he  got  no  farther. 
He  met  his  father  —  coming  in. 

Johnathan  made  an  arresting  gesture. 

"Young  man,"  he  announced  hoarsely,  "I  want  to  see 
you." 

The  boy  was  startled  by  the  strange  quality  of  Johnathan's 
voice.  The  father's  face  was  white  and  drawn.  There  were 
puffy  circles  beneath  his  eyes  and  almost  no  color  in  his 
lips. 

"Whatter  you  want?"  demanded  the  boy  sullenly. 

"It's  time  that  you  and  I  had  a  talk,  young  fellow.  You're 
approaching  man's  estate.  It's  time  that  you  and  I  had  a 
talk." 


They  went  into  the  parlor  and  sat  down  in  the  dark. 
Nathan  was  first  puzzled,  then  alarmed.  As  the  time  passed 
and  his  father  sat  silent,  an  ominous  silhouette  opposite  in 
the  dark,  that  alarm  increased  to  panic.  Finally  Johnathan 
cleared  his  throat. 

"I  just  met  Caleb  Gridley  up  the  street  a  pace,"  he  an- 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  153 

notmced.  "We  had  a  talk  —  him  and  me.  We  talked  about 
you  —  and  your  poetry." 

"Mr.  Gridley?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Gridley!  You've  been  coming  along,  Nathan 
iel.  You've  been  coming  along  so  fast  I've  hardly  noticed. 
But  to-night  you've  had  a  thing  printed  in  the  paper  that's 
brought  me  to  my  senses.  You're  getting  too  big  to  thrash. 
So  I've  concluded  to  talk  with  you,  I  say.  It's  time  we  got 
this  poetry  business  straight.  I'm  responsible  to  God  for 
your  soul  and  this  poetry  business  brings  home  how  much. 
How  old  are  you,  Nathan?" 

"Seventeen,"  the  boy  answered  grimly. 

"Yes,  you're  seventeen.  And  at  the  wild,  foolish  age  of 
seventeen  you're  starting  out  to  ruin  your  life  precisely  as 
I  started  out  to  ruin  mine.  And  did!  Only  I  started  at 
twenty-one  instead  of  bally  seventeen." 

"Ruining  my  life?  How  am  I  ruining  my  life,  by  writing 
poetry?" 

"No !  By  going  contrary  to  your  father's  best  judgment 
for  your  welfare  and  future.  By  trying  to  do  something 
and  be  something  which  your  father  doesn't  approve  of. 
At  twenty-one  I  was  in  the  same  position  toward  my  father 
—  I  admit  it !  My  father  knew  what  was  best  for  me ;  he 
was  older  and  therefore  wiser.  He  wanted  me  to  be  a 
business  man  —  to  set  up  a  shop  with  him.  But  I  had  hazy, 
half-baked  ideas  that  I  wanted  to  be  a  minister.  So  I  went 
contrary  to  my  father's  advice  and  his  wiser  judgment." 

"You  regretted  wanting  to  be  a  minister?" 

"No!  I've  regretted  I  presumed  to  know  more  than  my 
father  about  what  I  was  best  fitted  to  do.  And  now  my 
own  boy  has  come  along  and  stands  exactly  on  the  brink 
of  the  same  horrible  precipice.  I'd  have  thanked  my  father 
if  he'd  broken  my  neck  for  my  independence.  I'm  not 
going  to  do  that  to  you.  But  I  want  to  show  you  the  hideous 
mistake  you're  making.  Nathaniel,  I  want  to  save  you  from 
frittering  away  your  life  being  any  such  puerile,  willy-nilly 
thing  as  a  poet !" 

"But  I  like  being  a  writer!     I  could  do  something  big!" 

"Stop!  I'm  doing  the  talking!  You  like  to  write  poems, 
yes.  And  some  men  like  to  drink  whisky  and  smoke  ciga 
rettes.  But  this  isn't  a  world  in  which  we  can  pamper  our 
selves  in  the  things  we  like  to  do.  It's  a  world  in  which 


154  THE  FOG 

we've  got  to  school  ourselves  in  stiff  self-discipline  —  do  the 
things  we  don't  like  to  do.  Always !  The  moment  a  boy  or 
a  man  goes  doing  something  he  likes  to  do,  he's  guilty  of  a 
weakness  —  of  a  sin !  —  and  sin  is  displeasing  in  the  sight  of 
the  Heavenly  Father.  The  Bible  says  so!" 

"But  if  I  can't  write,  what  do  you  want  I  should 
do?" 

"The  Bible  says,  'By  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou 
eat  bread,'  Genesis,  third  chapter,  nineteenth  verse.  That 
means  a  man's  chief  concern  in  this  world  is  work,  business. 
All  other  things  come  second  to  work,  business.  A  man 
should  first  of  all  have  a  trade,  succeed  in  a  good  business, 
make  money.  After  he's  done  these  things,  then  perhaps  he 
can  waste  a  little  time  with  foolishness  like  poetry.  But 
to  put  the  poetry  nonsense  first,  —  that's  the  cart  before  the 
horse;  that's  to  court  failure,  poverty,  all  the  hardships  I've 
had  to  endure,  wanting  to  be  a  minister  before  I  knew  my 
own  mind  —  marrying  your  mother!  And  I've  decided  I 
don't  intend  to  see  you  do  it.  As  you're  not  old  enough 
to  make  up  your  own  mind  yet,  it's  my  duty  to  make  it  up 
for  you.  But  I  want  you  to  see  why  and  how  it's  done. 
Twenty  years  from  to-night,  on  your  bended  knees,  with 
tears  in  your  eyes,  you'll  kiss  my  hand  and  thank  me  —  just 
as  you're  going  to  thank  me  some  day  for  keeping  you 
from  girls  or  setting  you  to  work  in  the  tannery  —  having 
that  valuable  experience  in  contacting  with  unpleasant 
things." 

"Pa!"  cried  the  aghast  boy.  "You're  not  going  to  say 
I  can't  write  any  more  poetry !" 

"I'm  going  to  say  you  can't  write  any  more  poetry  until 
you  know  your  own  mind.  What  you've  written  in  to 
night's  paper  goes  to  show  the  injury  an  immature,  undis 
ciplined  boy  can  do  to  himself  and  to  those  who  love  him  — 
by  not  knowing  his  own  mind.  All  over  this  town  to-night 
sensible  people  are  reading  your  poetry.  They're  laughing 
at  you  and  pitying  you.  But  they're  damning  me  as  your 
father  for  not  keeping  a  guiding  hand  on  you,  training  your 
thoughts  and  impulses  into  healthy,  money-making  channels. 
To-night  in  the  House  of  God  I  hung  my  head  in  shame  for 
the  thing  my  son  had  done.  Even  a  minister  of  the  Gospel 
rebuked  me  before  the  Elders  in  the  Temple.  And  that 
shame,  your  shame  as  well  as  mine,  is  almost  greater  than  I 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  155 

can  bear.  It  can't  be  duplicated,  young  man.  It's  got  to 
stop  before  you  do  something  far  more  sickening." 

"But,  Pa !    I  like  to  write  poetry !    It  comes  so  easy " 

"Who  are  you  —  little,  inconsequential,  immature  Nathan 
iel  Forge  —  that  you  should  consider  yourself  capable  or  tal 
ented  enough  to  go  before  the  public  with  your  silly  little 
rhymes?  What  do  you  know  about  life  and  its  responsi 
bilities  and  penalties  —  merely  living  here  in  this  quiet,  shel 
tered,  comfortable  home  with  your  dear  father  and  mother 
and  little  sister?  Hasn't  it  yet  dawned  on  your  brazen 
little  brain  that  all  the  great  poets  have  been  men  of  mature 
intellect  and  venerable  years — Longfellow,  Tennyson,  Whit- 
tier  —  what  were  they  but  bent  beneath  the  weight  of  time, 
with  gray  heads  and  flowing  beards ?" 

"Bryant  wrote  'Thanatopsis'  at  eighteen !"  flashed  Nathan. 
"And  it's  one  of  the  biggest  poems  in  the  English  language !" 

"Don't  argue!"  roared  Johnathan,  his  temper  rising. 
"  'Harken  to  my  counsel  and  give  heed  to  my  understanding !' 
I'm  talking  for  your  own  best  interest." 

"Hang  it  all,  Pa,  I  don't  care  about  business!  I  don't 
take  to  money-making  at  all !" 

"Then  all  the  more  reason  why  you  should  be  made  to 
take  to  money-making  —  correct  a  weakness  in  your  charac 
ter.  Making  money,  doing  business,  is  fine  and  manly  and 
virile.  But  is  there  anything  fine  and  manly  and  virile  about 
wasting  your  time  on  silly,  obscene  lines  of  rhymes  —  that 
start  a  whole  town  laughing  at  you  and  pointing  the  fin 
ger  of  scorn  at  your  father?  Answer  me,  sir!  Answer 
me!" 

"I  don't  know  what  to  answer.  You  cut  all  the  solid 
ground  out  from  under  me.  I  thought  I'd  found  something 
I  could  be  a  success  in,  if  I  did  it  long  enough.  But  you 
throw  me  all  up  in  the  air.  I  don't  know  what  I  want  to 
be,  or  what  I  want  to  aim  for,  at  all !" 

"That's  God  speaking  to  you,  my  boy  —  telling  you  you're 
not  old  enough  nor  wise  enough  yet  to  decide  such  matters 
for  yourself.  That's  why  boys  are  given  fathers  — 
to  decide  for  them.  The  proper  and  commendable  conduct 
for  a  boy  is  to  be  meek  and  docile  and  humble,  to  accept 
the  dictates  and  judgments  of  those  who  are  wiser  and  older. 
The  Bible  says,  'Blessed  are  the  meek:  for  they  shall  in 
herit  the  earth !'  —  Matthew,  fifth  chapter,  fifth  verse.  All 


156  THE  FOG 

great  men  are  meek  men.  They  efface  themselves.  They 
barken  to  those  more  learned  and  venerable  —  not  ram  about 
the  world  trying  to  poke  their  half -digested  opinions  at 
people,  especially  at  seventeen.  And  in  poetry!" 

"I  suppose  I  should  have  been  meek  when  Si  Plumb  made 
me  the  laughing-stock  of  the  tannery  crowd  that  day  ?  Let 
him  walk  all  over  me.  You  said  then  you  were  glad  I'd 
showed  some  starch " 

"Young  man,  we'll  not  make  this  an  argument!  Stand 
ing  up  for  your  rights  in  a  fist  fight  is  a  far  different  matter 
than  trying  to  show  you  are  somebody  in  print,  before  you've 
reached  your  majority.  Besides,  if  you  hadn't  been  drooling 
around  with  poetry  that  day,  you  wouldn't  have  got  yourself 
into  that  fight  in  the  first  place!" 

Nathan  had  difficulty  in  following  his  father's  logic  ex 
cepting  that  Johnathan  had  decided  he  did  not  care  to  have 
his  boy  a  poet,  —  at  least  at  present.  Tears  welled  in  his 
eyes.  He  pillowed  his  head  wearily  on  his  arm. 

"Hang  it  all,  Pa !  It  seems  as  if  Life's  getting  to  be  noth 
ing  but  a  regular  fog.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  groping  my  way 
around  in  it  —  not  being  able  to  see  much  sun  —  bumping 
into  all  sorts  of  things  —  not  knowing  which  way  to  go  to  get 
out,  or  reach  any  special  place.  I'm  just  blundering  around 
and  around  and  around  and  —  oh,  what's  the  use?" 

"All  the  more  reason  why  you  should  listen  to  your  lov 
ing  father's  counsel.  I've  been  through  the  mill  of  experi 
ence.  I  want  to  save  you  from  going  through  it,  too  —  mak 
ing  all  my  hideous,  horrible  mistakes." 

"But  you  haven't  made  a  success  of  your  own  life,  Pa! 
Then  how  can  you  tell  me  what  to  do,  when  you  haven't 
been  able  to  do  it  yourself?" 

"Be  careful,  young  man !  No  impudence !  I'm  older  than 
you  and  therefore  must  know  better." 

A  long,  strained  silence  followed.  Finally  came  Nathan's 
voice. 

"Father!" 

"Yes,  my  son?" 

"I'm  not  going  to  do  it!" 

"You're  not  going  to  do  what?" 

"Stop  writing !" 

Johnathan  Forge  could  scarcely  believe  his  ears.  For  a 
quarter  moment  he  sat  rigid,  hardly  seeming  to  breathe. 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  157 

"What  say?     What  say?"  he  gasped  weakly. 

"I'm  not  going  to  promise  to  stop  writing  poetry  —  noth 
ing  of  the  sort !  I've  got  a  hunch  for  it,  if  I  am  blundering 
around  in  a  fog.  But  somewhere,  sometime,  I'll  find  my 
way  out.  I  know  I'm  not  the  kind  of  son  you  wish  you'd 
had.  Edith's  not  the  kind  of  daughter  or  mother  isn't  the 
kind  of  wife,  either.  But  I'm  me  and  I'm  going  to  keep 
trying.  Nobody's  going  to  stop  me  —  and " 

"You  saucy  young  pup !    You  saucy  young  pup !" 

"I'm  not  saucy!  I'm  honest.  I'm  giving  you  a  fair, 
square  answer " 

"I'll  flog  you  within  an  inch  of  your  life!" 

"Don't  do  it,  dad!     It'll  only  make  things  worse." 

There  was  a  queer  ring  in  the  boy's  voice.  Johnathan 
was  so  totally  and  completely  taken  aback  he  was  weak  all 
over.  His  own  son !  —  in  his  own  house !  —  openly  defying 
him !  —  declaring  bluntly  and  boldly  that  he,  the  father,  was 
not  to  have  perfect  obedience  in  all  things. 

"My  son,  don't  have  me  call  down  the  curse  of  God  upon 
you!  It  will  follow  you  all  the  days  of  your  life." 

"You  don't  have  to  call  down  anything,  Pa.  You're  try 
ing  to  make  me  give  up  the  only  thing  I  know  how  to  do 
and  do  well.  You  haven't  any  right  to  do  it.  I  know  you 
haven't.  I  feel  it.  I  can  write  good  enough  to  get  pub 
lished.  So  I'm  going  on.  I  don't  believe  you  know  what's 
good  for  me  at  all,  or  you  wouldn't  ask  it.  Instead  of  help 
ing  me  in  the  fog,  you're  only  making  it  worse." 

"You  miserable,  little ' 

"I'm  going  to  be  twenty-one  in  just  four  years  more. 
I'm  going  to  boss  my  own  life  then.  You  can  lick  me  now 
if  you  want.  But  if  you  do —  for  just  wanting  to  keep  on 
with  the  thing  I  can  do  best  and  easiest  and  like  to  do  — 
I've  pretty  near  made  up  my  mind  I'm  going  to  run  away  — 
where  you  can't  find  me  till  I'm  twenty-one.  And  I'm  never 
coming  back." 

"God's  curses " 

"I  don't  believe  God  curses  any  one,  Pa.  He's  too  busy 
running  the  stars  and  suns  and  —  heaven  —  to  care  whether 
I  like  poetry  or  you  want  me  to  be  a  business  man." 

"And  you'd  —  stand  up  to  your  father  —  like  this ?" 

"When  I  don't  think  I've  done  any  wrong,  yes." 

"I'll  thrash  you " 


158  THE  FOG 

"All  right,  Pa.  Only  to-morrow  morning  I  won't  be  here. 
You'll  never  do  it  again." 

"I'll  have  the  law  on  you  and  fetch  you  back!" 

"The  law'll  never  know  where  I  am  —  to  fetch  me  back." 

For  the  first  time,  Johnathan  stood  checkmate.  That  queer, 
hard  ring  in  his  incorrigible  son's  voice  told  him  subcon 
sciously  that  he  wac,  close  to  the  end  of  seventeen  years  of 
bullying. 

Such  a  thing  had  never  happened  before.  His  wife  had 
fought  with  him,  indeed,  but  it  had  always  been  a  "chewing 
match."  Though  he  had  never  struck  her,  the  fact  remained 
that  he  could  strike  her  and  beat  her  up  thoroughly,  if  he 
chose.  He  had  a  feeling,  however,  that  if  he  went  beyond 
a  certain  point  with  Nathan,  the  devil  had  hold  of  his  son's 
soul  just  hard  enough  so  that  Johnathan  might  encounter 
the  distressing  predicament  of  not  being  able  to  come  off 
victor.  Nathan  had  whipped  the  Plumb  fellow.  The  Plumb 
fellow  was  larger  than  Johnathan.  In  popular  parlance, 
Johnathan  was  rather  "up  against  it." 

The  father  did  a  strange  thing.  He  arose  abruptly,  turned 
and  walked  from  the  room.  Nathan  heard  him  pass  through 
the  hall,  out  the  front  door,  across  the  veranda  and  down 
the  steps. 

Why  had  he  gone?  Where  was  he  headed?  This  silent, 
abrupt,  unexplained,  ominous  departure  unnerved  the  lad 
more  than  any  commencement  of  fistic  hostilities. 

Johnathan  Forge  did  not  return  that  evening.  All  that 
night  he  walked  the  streets,  debating  whether  he  should  call 
down  God's  curses  on  his  boy.  He  actually  believed  that 
if  he  did,  the  son's  life  would  be  blasted  forever.  Morning 
came  cold  and  gray  and  clammy  across  the  eastern  hills. 

But  in  the  morning  the  Forge  household  resumed  the  even 
tenor  of  its  way.  Only  Johnathan  did  not  speak  to  his  son 
for  four  days  and  then  only  on  matters  of  absolute  necessity. 

Nathan,  however,  had  made  a  discovery.  This  is  a  world 
in  which  people  suffer  and  endure  exactly  what  they  choose 
to  suffer  and  not  much  more.  When  the  worm  turns,  ninety 
per  cent,  of  the  early  birds  turn  also. 

As  a  discovery,  it  opened  many  prolific  possibilities. 


CONSIDER  THE  WORM  159 


VI 

Johnathan,  on  that  night's  walk,  however,  had  determined 
upon  a  maneuver  and  reached  a  great  decision. 

If  he  could  not  control  his  son  by  scoring  his  body  with 
a  harness  tug  for  the  good  of  his  soul,  he  would  employ 
tact  and  discretion.  In  order  to  save  his  son  from  a  horrible 
life  of  poetry,  he  would  get  into  some  business,  ostensibly 
of  a  manufacturing  nature,  which  might  grip  his  boy's  in 
terest  as  his  own,  and  set  up  an  industrial  counter-irritant 
to  poetic  pathology. 

If  Nathan  hadn't  written  that  Pagan  poem  and  set  his 
father  by  the  ears,  Johnathan  would  never  have  gone  into 
business  and  taken  Nathan  with  him.  And  if  he  had  not 
gone  into  business  and  taken  Nathan  with  him,  all  the  course 
of  the  boy's  life  would  have  been  changed. 

Viewed  from  the  perspective  of  the  present,  truly  it  was 
a  happy  stroke,  —  writing  that  Pagan  poem. 


CHAPTER  XV 

VALLEY   LAMPS 


Madelaine  Theddon  was  seventeen  that  autumn.  She  was 
one  of  those  rare  girls  who  seem  to  slip  subtly  into  maturity 
while  contemporaries  of  equal  age  are  giggling  over  pimply- 
faced  lovers,  locking  themselves  away  in  bedrooms  to  indite 
silly  billet-doux,  sighing  over  novels  or  clandestinely  "put 
ting  up  their  hair." 

On  an  afternoon  in  mid-September  she  had  climbed  Mt. 
Tom  with  a  party  of  schoolmates  older  than  herself  in 
nothing  but  years.  They  had  accidentally  (?)  encountered 
college  boys  from  Amherst.  They  lunched,  flirted,  drank 
and  danced  in  the  great,  airy  Summit  House. 

Madelaine  was  an  accomplished  dancer  because  of  her 
litheness  and  exquisite  grace  of  carriage.  Yet  to-day  she 
had  not  cared  for  dancing.  "Old  Mother  Hubbard"  the 
boys  often  nicknamed  her,  —  and  left  her  alone.  It  was  in 
creasingly  difficult  for  Madelaine  to  endure  the  crudities  and 
vaporings  of  slangy,  big-footed  adolescence.  They  had  left 
her  much  alone  to-day. 

She  stole  down  the  deck-like  Summit  House  verandas, 
one  by  one,  down  the  weather-mellowed  and  unpainted  steps, 
and  wandered  off  to  the  lower  point  of  ledge  at  the  south  of 
that  summit  plateau.  The  Connecticut  valley  was  far-flung 
at  her  feet,  already  hazy  with  dew-fog  and  twinkling  with 
the  first  lamps  of  evening. 

Hushed,  peaceful,  lofty,  that  place  was,  —  serene,  like  the 
hour.  The  western  afterglow  was  dying  into  lead.  The 
sky  —  always  finer  and  vaster  from  a  mountain  height  — 
seemed  a  mammoth  arch  of  sapphire  porcelain  where  a  low- 
hung  evening  star  in  the  clear  southwest  shared  ephemeral 
honors  with  a  chaste  new  moon. 

Madelaine  stood  for  a  time  with  her  figure  in  silhouette 


VALLEY  LAMPS  161 

against  the  south,  far  out  on  the  point  of  rock,  raised  in 
spirit  above  the  world.  The  night  wind,  warm  and  river- 
moistened,  blew  up  from  vistaed  lowlands,  rippled  her  ac 
cordion  skirt  and  raised  pretty  havoc  with  her  hair.  Her 
hands  were  thrust  in  the  pockets  of  her  sweater-coat,  a 
sinuous  protection  of  old-rose  silk.  She  drank  deeply  of 
the  night  wind.  She  was  thankful  for  the  solitude. 

The  world  was  very  beautiful  in  these  first  clear  hours  of 
early  evening.  She  sank  down  after  a  time  on  the  rock, 
gathering  skirts  about  fragile  ankles.  She  rested  an  elbow 
on  a  knee,  a  cheek  in  a  shapely  hand.  And  fancy  wan 
dered. 

Faint,  disturbing  yearnings  had  throbbed  in  the  girl's  body 
of  late  —  her  hunger  for  an  Unknown  Something  was  grad 
ually  changing  —  assuming  a  different  aspect.  There  were 
times  when  she  wanted  to  love  —  overwhelmingly  —  every 
one  and  everything  in  the  world.  Then  she  hated  the  world 
for  its  crudities  and  shrank  from  the  monstrosities  which 
shocked  her  on  every  hand. 

Why  did  people  remark  —  and  keep  on  remarking  —  that 
she  was  "different"?  Wherein  was  she  different? 

In  so  far  as  her  school  life  developed,  she  played  tennis, 
gave  chafing-dish  parties,  went  canoeing  and  handled  the 
canoe  herself,  was  officer  and  active  worker  in  most  of  the 
school  societies.  She  was  versatile  without  being  prodigal. 
Yet  through  all  her  activities  ran  that  same  thread  of  dark- 
eyed  observation,  —  poise,  self-conservation  without  repres 
sion,  the  intuitive  ability  to  be  ever  the  spectator  while  also 
the  participant. 

The  other  girls  frankly  "did  not  know  what  to  make  of 
her."  Yet  when  they  were  in  difficulty  or  desired  help 
on  matters  they  were  restrained  from  carrying  to  their  eld 
ers,  they  sought  out  Madelaine  Theddon  as  straight  as  a 
homing  bee. 

Up  and  down  the  slope  at  her  left,  the  mountain  cable- 
cars  kept  steep  and  endless  shuttling.  At  her  feet  the  ser 
ried  lights  of  Holyoke  Highlands  brightened.  Far  to  the 
south  the  concentration  of  radiance  she  knew  to  be  Spring 
field  glowed  clearer  on  the  horizon.  Yet  none  of  these,  nor 
the  stars,  nor  the  fresh  new  moon,  held  the  attraction  of 
those  dots  of  brave,  optimistic  twinkle  where  isolated  homes 
were  scattered  upon  the  face  of  a  night-shrouded  valley 


162  THE  FOG 

floor.     Was   that   it  —  the   thing   that   troubled   her  —  the 
lights  of  other  people's  homes? 

She  did  not  wonder  that  heaven  was  peaceful,  that  God 
could  be  calm  and  omnipotent,  high  above  the  world.  The 
spot  and  the  panorama  was  an  allegory.  Yes,  the  earth  was 
beautiful  —  very  beautiful.  She  had  always  known  it  so. 
She  knew  it  now  a  hundredfold.  The  pain  came  from  won 
dering  about  her  part  in  it,  and  of  it,  even  as  in  her  school 
life  she  remained  the  spectator  though  virilely  the  participant. 

Waltz  music  from  the  Summit  House  drifted  down  to  her. 
The  world  was  hers,  all  its  lights  and  laughter,  all  its  fine 
rare  things,  all  its  rewards  and  fairies.  No,  the  world  was 
nothing  of  the  sort !  She  was  a  mendicant,  a  Nobody.  Al 
ways  a  Nobody.  How  could  she  ever  forget  that?  So  her 
moods  played  upon  her.  This  at  seventeen. 

For  Madelaine  Theddon  at  seventeen,  on  a  mountain  height 
in  the  starlight,  was  as  surely  the  Madelaine  Theddon  whom 
One  Man  found  gloriously,  as  the  sand-crusted  diamond  in 
the  Kaffir's  girdle  is  the  same  burst  of  iridescent  whiteness 
on  Milady's  finger  at  Delmonico's. 

Madelaine,  on  the  rock,  wondered  about  the  future,  what 
she  should  do  in  the  world,  what  niche  she  should  fill.  At 
times  she  felt  a  wild,  instinctive  impulse  to  attempt  great 
tasks,  —  build,  win,  create,  worship  vast  gods.  Then  her 
own  weakness,  namelessness,  impotency,  would  overwhelm 
her.  She  must  be  attached  to  something  substantial  to  do 
great  work.  Some  one  must  have  emphatic  need  of  her. 
In  these  last  moods  she  felt  that  building,  winning,  creating, 
worshiping  vast  gods,  was  all  hollow  nonsense,  —  tinsel  and 
mummery.  She  only  wanted  to  complement.  But  what  she 
wanted  to  complement  she  could  not  decide,  even  if  she  could 
reach  that  far  in  her  self -analysis.  She  was  flowering  in 
deed,  but  she  was  still  seventeen. 

The  evening  deepened.  The  afterglow  —  even  the  leaden 
afterglow  —  died  on  the  hills.  The  stars  and  moon  rode 
close.  Lethe-like,  exotic  scents  wandered  through  the  upper 
air,  no  longer  earthbound,  soaring  onward  and  upward  to 
sweeten  the  reaches  of  infinity. 

She  was  not  in  love,  not  at  seventeen,  despite  encroach 
ing  maturity.  Boys  she  knew,  even  the  best  of  them,  were 
calloused,  independent,  painfully  sophisticated  young  hoy 
dens  whose  principal  invocation  to  the  opposite  sex  was 


VALLEY  LAMPS  163 

"Say!"  And  yet  that  restive,  insatiable  hunger  to  comple 
ment —  the  finest,  grandest  heritage  of  true  womanhood  — 
was  gnawing.  Gnawing  pitifully. 

Yet  if  she  were  not  in  love,  love  was  in  her,  —  blind,  wing 
less,  already  beginning  to  look  up  through  the  latticed  win 
dows  of  cloistered  maidenhood,  observe  the  stars,  long  for 
freedom  without  knowing  exactly  what  she  would  do  with 
freedom  if  it  were  suddenly  accorded  her.  Dreams  came 
to  her  in  detached  hours,  vague,  breeze-wafted,  miracle- 
laden.  But  when  she  tried  to  lay  hold  upon  those  dreams, 
make  them  over  into  conformity  with  reality,  the  world 
veered  askew.  She  seemed  to  abrase  her  delicate  soul  in 
the  enforced  juxtaposition. 


II 

The  "crowd",  regardless  of  proper  chaperonage,  had  to  be 
back  in  Mount  Hadley  at  nine  o'clock.  But  the  girl  stayed 
there  on  the  ledge  until  the  final  moment  of  departure. 
Alarmed  companions,  missing  her,  searched  the  mountain 
top,  calling  her  name. 

The  "chaperone"  was  a  hulking  maiden  whose  eligibility 
consisted  in  the  fact  that  "come  December  she  was  going 
to  be  married."  The  woman  arraigned  Madelaine  severely. 

".  .  .  If  you  ever  give  me  another  scare  like  this,  I'll  have 
you  read  out  of  school!  The  very  idea  of  running  off  by 
yourself  and  moping  close  to  the  edge  of  a  dangerous 
precipice  in  the  dark !  I  never  had  such  a  fright  in  my  life !" 

"I'm  sorry,"  returned  Madelaine.  "The  valley  was  very 
beautiful.  I  stole  off  to  watch  the  twinkling  lamps." 

"Oh  —  you  stole  off  to  watch  the  twinkling  lamps  ?  Rather 
watch  a  few  twinkling  lamps  than  have  some  real  fun  while 
you've  got  the  chance.  I  wouldn't  be  like  you,  Madge  Thed- 
don,  for  all  the  money  there  is  in  Massachusetts.  Why! 
You  simply  don't  know  how  to  enjoy  yourself " 

"Maybe,"  suggested  a  snippish  little  prig  who  had  enterea 
the  school  a  couple  of  years  before,  "maybe  she's  wondering 
who  her  folks  are!" 

The  prig's  name  was  Gridley  and  she  had  shown  a  dis 
like  for  Madelaine  from  the  first  afternoon.  Miss  Bernice 
Gridley  had  small  patience  with  the  quiet  smile  that  played 


164  THE  FOG 

about  Madelaine's  lips  when  the  former  sought  to  impress 
upon  whosoever  it  might  concern  the  vast  importance  of 
the  Gridley  money  and  blood.  "She's  an  orphan,"  went 
on  the  Gridley  girl,  loud  enough  for  Madelaine  to  overhear. 
As  Bernice  intended  she  should.  "An  awful  nice  feller  I 
got  acquainted  with  at  the  prom  last  June  told  me  so.  He's 
a  cousin  of  hers  or  something.  She  was  adopted  out  of  an 
orphan  asylum.  She's  all  stuck  up  because  her  foster-mother 
happens  to  have  money !  I'd  rather  be  poor  than  a  nobody !" 

Madelaine's  features  burned  scarlet.  A  newspaper  was 
lying  on  the  seat  of  the  trolley  beside  her.  She  picked  up 
the  sheet  and  tried  to  read,  hiding  her  flaming  face  behind  it. 

It  was  the  editorial  page  of  that  evening's  Springfield 
Union.  In  the  "goofus"  column  the  staff  humorist  had  in 
cluded  several  verses  clipped  from  an  exchange.  When 
Madelaine's  sight  had  cleared,  she  read  the  words.  Then 
she  forgot  the  ill-bred  Gridley  girl.  The  subject  and  senti 
ment  was  mesmeric  and  the  catty  environment  faded. 

"GIRL-WITHOUT-A-NAME 
(From  The  Paris  [Vt.]   Telegraph) 

"You  came  to  me  in  my  dreams  last  night, 

Dear  Girl-Without-a-Name ; 
A  lovely  phantom  from  out  the  space 

That  parts  our  lives,  you  came. 
You  greeted  me  with  your  eyes,  dear  heart, 

And  secrets  Peri  keep; 
I  moved  with  you,  with  your  hand  in  mine, 

Down  the  mystic  glades  of  sleep. 

"We  idled  long  in  those  glades,  dear  heart, 

The  world  a  purple  mist; 
Beside  an  amethyst  stream  we  strolled 

And  kept  that  midnight  tryst. 
The  little  stars  drifted  down  the  sky, 

A  hush !  .  .  .  I  felt  a  hand, 
And  once  .  .  .  just  once !  .  . .  came  a  whisper  soft: 

'Dear  heart,  I  understand!' 

"I  do  not  know  all  we  said,  dear  heart, 

The  night  ran  swift  away, 
But  all  the  charm  of  your  presence  sweet 
Came  back  from  Dream  to  Day. 


VALLEY  LAMPS  165 

It's  not  the  words  that  you  spoke,  dear  heart, 

That  made  that  tryst  so  fine, 
But  that  kind  night  found  a  subtle  way 

To  bring  your  hand  to  mine. 

"The  tears  and  toil  we  may  know,  dear  heart, 

Must  some  day  reach  an  end; 
Through  miles  and  years  we  must  search  sometimes, 

Ten  thousand  for  one  friend. 
Yet  some  great  noon  in  the  sun-glare  bright, 

In  some  vast  open  space, 
You'll  stand,  flesh-clothed,  with  your  arms  outstretched 

And  triumph  on  your  face. 

"I  know  few  words  will  be  needed  then, 

Lament  nor  name  nor  plea, 
We'll  let  our  eyes  speak  the  message  sweet: 

'Grow  old  along  with  me !' 
A  thousand  years  shall  become  as  one 

As  heart  to  heart  shall  press, 
And  God  shall  start  all  his  worlds  anew 

From  that  first  white  caress. 

"You  may  be  dark  or  you  may  be  fair, 

You  may  not  have  a  name, 
Though  you've  been  sold  for  a  caliph's  gold 

That  kiss  will  mean  the  same. 
The  soul  of  man  has  a  thousand  lives, 

Yet  Love  has  only  one, 
That  leaps  alive  to  the  glory-cry: 

'Dear  heart,  the  trek  is  done !' 

"And  so  the  nights  with  a  velvet  tread 

Mount  softly  into  years; 
The  gray  days  come  and  the  bright  days  go, 

With  smiles  and  fears  and  tears. 
But  somewhere  off  o'er  a  clean  sea's  track, 

Each  soul's  High  Noon  is  due; 
Be  strong,  dear  heart,  though  the  wait  is  hard ; 
Till  then  .  .  .  just  dreams  .  .  .  and  You ! 

— "NATHANIEL  FORGE." 

"Madelaine  read  the  fine-typed  verses  again  and  again.  An 
inexplicable,  constricted  feeling  tightened  across  her  chest. 
Somehow  the  lines  frightened  her,  as  though  a  Voice  had 
come  from  the  void  and  whispered  a  promise  close  at  her  ear. 


166  THE  FOG 

She  finally  creased  the  edges  of  the  column  neat  and  true. 
She  tore  away  the  ragged  portions  and  folded  the  poem  in 
her  purse. 

Who  was  Nathaniel  Forge?  Why  should  he  write  such 
a  poem?  She  wondered.  She  saved  the  poem. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MORE   ROMANCING 


Nathan  was  in  love  again! 

The  winter  of  1906-1907  contributed  two  incidents  of 
far-reaching  importance  to  this  account  of  hectic  romance. 

Johnathan  Forge  bought  the  local  box  shop. 

Miss  Carol  Gardner  came  to  Paris  from  Ohio  —  pro 
nounced  "A-higher" —  and  when  the  boy  met  her,  "to  his 
eye  there  was  but  one  beloved  face  on  earth  and  that  was 
shining  on  him." 

It  developed  that  for  a  considerable  time,  unsuspected  by 
his  family,  Johnathan  had  been  "looking  around  for  some 
good  business",  professedly  of  a  manufacturing  nature 
where  the  labor  of  others  might  accrue  to  his  benefit  in  more 
sizable  portions  than  the  cobbling  business  allowed.  Henry 
Campbell  died  suddenly  in  November.  The  executors  of 
fered  his  property  for  sale.  The  first  inkling  Paris  re 
ceived  that  the  town  cobbler  had  aspirations  toward  capital 
ism  came  via  the  Telegraph  one  February  evening.  A  deal 
had  gone  through  that  day  with  Johnathan  Forge  for  the 
box  shop.  The  cobbler  was  assuming  management  at  once. 

Mrs.  Anna  Forge  heard  the  news  via  the  Telegraph  also, 
by  the  way. 

The  Campbell  Press-Board  Company,  as  the  firm  had 
been  listed  in  town  directory  and  telephone  book,  made 
pasteboard  boxes.  In  them  were  packed  the  products  of 
the  larger  industries  of  Paris,  the  Thorne  Knitting  Mills, 
the  Stevens  Hard-Rubber  Process  Works.  The  business 
was  considered  profitable,  in  a  modest  way,  if  expenses 
were  held  to  a  minimum.  Johnathan  felt  himself  especially 
born  to  that  business.  If  there  was  one  thing  he  em 
phatically  knew  how  to  do,  in  business  or  family,  it  was 
holding  expenses  to  a  minimum.  To  his  wife's  stupefac- 


168  THE  FOG 

tion,  he  drew  eighteen  hundred  dollars  from  the  Paris 
Savings  Bank  and  gave  notes  aggregating  thirty-two  hun 
dred  in  addition.  Thus  Johnathan  became  a  "manufac 
turer." 

The  "box  shop"  was  located  on  the  northern  edge  of 
town  where  Paris  "ran  out"  in  cheap  pastureland  and  cat 
tail  bog.  It  was  a  big  ark  of  a  building,  constructed  on 
filled-in-land,  two  stories  in  height  and  painted  a  dirty 
yellow.  In  the  southeast  corner,  facing  the  roadway,  was 
a  fourteen-foot  room  known  as  the  "office."  In  this  office 
Johnathan  established  himself,  and  the  son,  the  moon  and 
the  stars  were  summoned  to  rise  and  set  at  his  bid 
ding. 

Only  the  son  obeyed,  however.  The  moon  and  the  stars 
were  not  at  all  affected  by  Johnathan's  new  industrial  im 
portance.  Nathan  was  called  upon  to  relinquish  his  position 
in  Caleb  Gridley's  office  on  the  simple  hypothesis  that  "his 
father  needed  him."  The  idea  was  that  office  help  cost 
money.  "Until  the  business  was  firmly  established"  (it 
had  been  running  twelve  years),  the  boy  should  be  willing 
to  work  for  his  father,  gratis.  Besides,  there  was  the  need 
for  saving  him  from  poetry. 

Nathan  demurred  against  leaving  old  Caleb.  If  he  had 
tutored  the  tanner  in  the  gentle  art  of  poetic  composition, 
the  tanner  had  reciprocated  by  schooling  Nathan  in  the 
fundamentals  and  finesse  of  business  until  to-day,  down 
here  in  1921,  that  same  education  is  responsible  for  my 
friend  holding  down  a  position  that  nets  him  an  annual 
salary  of  —  but  that  is  anticipating.  Old  Caleb  laid  the 
foundation  for  all  that  Nathan  knows  about  business.  If 
Nathan  has  gone  far  and  is  going  further,  what  old  Caleb 
taught  him  is  responsible,  augmented  by  his  own  artist's 
imagination  and  inherent  creative  ability.  Yet  Nathan's 
demurring  availed  him  nothing.  Nat  bade  old  Caleb  a 
tearful  good-by  one  February  night  and  the  tannery  was  a 
closed  chapter  in  his  life. 

After  six  months  without  Nathan,  old  Caleb  sold  the 
tannery. 

There  were  several  antiquated  job  presses  in  the  Campbell 
plant,  fitted  with  cutting  dies,  on  which  orders  for  folding 
cartons  were  executed.  But  the  bulk  of  the  work  was 
done  by  girls  on  a  piece-work  basis.  There  were  about 


MORE  ROMANCING  169 

twenty  of  these  girls  when  Johnathan  assumed  the  man 
agement.  Their  average  weekly  wage  was  seven  dollars. 
Johnathan  looked  over  this  "organization",  was  at  once 
persuaded  that  Henry  Campbell  had  not  "held  expenses 
down  to  a  minimum",  conceived  that  if  all  hands  did  twice 
as  much  work,  half  the  employees  could  be  dispensed  with, 
and  the  labor  item  thereby  reduced  jtist  fifty  per  cent.  So 
f.he  second  morning  the  "organization"  consisted  of  one 
lone  male  to  work  the  paper-cutter  and  ten  girls  to  paste 
the  boxes.  Nothing  was  said  about  giving  these  eleven 
more  money.  They  should  count  themselves  lucky  to  retain 
jobs  at  any  wage.  "Twice  as  much  output  or  discharge" 
was  the  cheery  motto  that  Johnathan  hung  in  his  "factory" 
and  he  pursued  it  consistently. 

He  pursued  it  so  consistently,  in  fact,  that  the  second 
week  no  one  was  working  but  Johnathan,  Anna  Forge, 
Nathan,  Edith  and  an  undersized  boy  with  adenoids.  The 
pay  roll  had  been  cut  from  $163.00  a  week  to  $4.50.  The 
boy  got  the  $4.50.  He  had  to  be  paid  money  or  his  folks 
wouldn't  let  him  work. 

Johnathan  was  so  intent  on  holding  expenses  to  a  mini 
mum  that  the  art  and  necessity  of  likewise  holding  his  help 
was  entirely  overlooked.  The  box-shop  girls  may  have 
been  only  seven-dollar  caliber  but  they  had  their  ideas 
about  slavery,  as  practiced  by  Johnathan  on  his  immediate 
family.  They  walked  out  to  a  girl  and  the  man  with  them. 
Then  local  firms  began  wrathfully  demanding  boxes. 

Johnathan  knew  how  to  hold  down  expenses.  There  was 
not  a  doubt  about  it.  Pay  out  no  money,  whether  necessary 
or  not.  Bank  the  balance  and  work  the  family. 

Thus  matters  drifted  along  into  the  second  week  and 
the  third,  Anna  Forge  trying  to  do  the  work  of  four 
former  girls  and  Edith  doing  about  one-half  of  one  girl. 
Nathan  ran  the  paper-cutter.  Johnathan  spent  most  of  his 
time  down  in  the  office,  punching  out  "important  corre 
spondence"  on  an  old  blind  typewriter  with  his  two  fore 
fingers.  The  adenoidal  boy  spent  his  time  out  on  the  back 
platform  clandestinely  smoking  cigarettes. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  month  so  many  orders  had  been 
cancelled  and  the  remainder  were  in  such  a  hopeless  state 
of  chaos  that  Nathan,  with  old  Caleb's  training  and  the 
imagination  of  the  artist,  saw  that  something  had  to  be 


i;o  THE  FOG 

done  and  done  quickly.  As  usual,  there  was  no  one  to  do 
it  but  himself. 

"Pa,"  he  observed  one  noontime,  "I've  got  a  proposition 
to  make  that  will  save  us  money." 

"Go  back  to  your  work!"  snapped  Johnathan.  "If  we 
don't  get  a  gross  of  Number  Sevens  to  the  knitting  mill  by 
five  o'clock  we  lose  their  business." 

"That's  exactly  why  I  want  to  make  you  a  proposition. 
I'd  like  you  to  turn  over  that  room  upstairs  to  me  absolutely 
and  let  me  organize  and  systematize  the  production  end 
as  I  please " 

"Turn  over  the  business  to  you?  Have  you  gone  crazy 
or  do  you  think  I  have?" 

" —  for  a  specified  price  per  box  over  the  cost  of  mate 
rials  and  profit.  Let  me  spend  the  money  as  I  choose  so 
long  as  I  turn  you  out  the  boxes  and  have  them  on  schedule 
time  on  the  shipping  platform?" 

"Do  you  mean  to  infer  you  know  more  about  running  a 
business  than  your  father,  who's  wiser  and  older  and  there 
fore  must " 

"I'm  not  arguing  that  I  want  to  run  the  business!  I 
only  want  to  run  the  production.  We've  got  an  order  for 
fifty  thousand  Number  Tens  for  the  process  works.  We're 
far  behind,  already.  You're  getting  eight  cents  a  piece  for 
those  boxes.  The  stock  costs  three  and  you're  figuring  half 
a  cent  profit.  That  leaves  four  and  a  half  cents  to  cover 
labor  and  all  factory  expense.  Will  you  give  me  three  and 
a  half  cents  for  producing  every  box,  regardless  of  how 
I  spend  the  money  ?  You  stay  down  here  and  run  the  office 
and  have  no  care  but  supplying  the  materials,  getting  the 
orders  and  collecting  the  money?" 

"No !"  snapped  Johnathan,  "I  will  not !  Get  back  to  your 
work." 

One  week  later  the  order  for  the  process  works  was 
cancelled.  The -process  works  announced  they  were  putting 
in  their  own  box  department.  They  had  no  time  to  waste 
while  Johnathan  ran  a  factory  as  he  ran  his  family.  More 
over,  the  knitting  mills  also  delivered  an  ultimatum.  John 
athan  called  his  son  to  his  "office." 

"Nathaniel,"  he  declared,  in  a  large  voice,  "I've  been 
thinking  over  what  you  suggested  Friday.  I  don't  know 
but  I'm  disposed  to  give  it  a  trial.  For  one  week,  say  —  to 


MORE  ROMANCING  171 

see  if  you  could  assume  such  a  big  responsibility.  I  doubt 
it.  But  I've  got  so  much  work  and  worry  here  in  the  office, 
with  this  correspondence  and  all " 

"A  week!  I  couldn't  work  out  anything  permanently 
effective  inside  of  three  months." 

"Three  months?     What  would  take  three  months?" 

"Getting  order  out  of  that  awful  chaos  upstairs.  There's 
got  to  be  a  careful  organization  planned,  routings  for  the 
work  laid  out  and  systems  installed." 

Johnathan  shied  at  that  word  "organization."  It  meant 
spending  money,  giving  hard  cash  to  indolent  employees  who 
"soldiered"  the  moment  his  back  was  turned.  But  in  the 
end  he  capitulated.  He  had  to  capitulate. 

Nathan,  with  the  high  heart  of  youth  eternal,  set  to 
work.  The  boy  traded  with  his  father  until  he  made  him 
promise  on  his  honor  not  to  cut  the  piece  rate  if  Nathan 
cut  the  costs.  On  that  promise  the  artist-imagination  of 
the  lad  built  soundly  and  swiftly. 

Johnathan  was  horrified  at  the  number  of  girls  and 
women  Nathan  set  to  work  at  the  long  tables.  That  they 
were  being  paid  piece  rates  and  if  they  failed  to  deliver, 
got  no  money,  cut  small  figure.  The  great,  stark,  horrible 
fact  remained  that  some  of  them  were  earning  eight,  ten, 
twelve,  fourteen  dollars  a  week.  Money  was  running  out 
like  water,  or  blood  from  a  wound  in  Johnathan's  side.  So 
many  boxes  were  being  produced  that  it  was  taxing  him 
to  the  utmost  to  get  materials  up  to  the  benches.  Not  only 
were  all  booked  orders  being  filled  on  schedule,  but  others 
had  to  be  secured  to  keep  the  little  plant  running.  All  this 
was  never  once  weighed  against  the  money  going  out  for 
pay  rolls.  One  cow-like  little  girl,  Milly  Richards,  had 
perfected  a  certain  operation  so  deftly  that  she  was  drawing 
fifteen  to  eighteen  dollars  a  week,  and  it  could  not  con 
tinue  ! 

What  mattered  it  if  Nathan  had  used  his  imagination 
and  inherent  creative  ability  to  cut  corners  and  manage 
efficiently  until  the  cost  per  box  had  dropped  to  less  than 
a  cent  and  a  half  ?  That  Richards  girl  was  drawing  eighteen 
perfectly  good  dollars  every  Saturday  noon.  And  it  could 
not  continue! 

Johnathan  awoke  in  the  night  and  agonized  over  it. 

Finally,  while  checking  up  the  pay  roll  one  week*  the 


i;2  THE  FOG 

father  threw  down  his  pencil  and  banged  an  angry  fist 
on  the  desk. 

"I'll  not  pay  that  Richards  girl  eighteen  dollars  a  week! 
I'll  not  do  it!  This  nonsense  stops  right  here  and  now!" 

"She's  earned  it!" 

"Before  she  came  here  she  worked  in  the  process  works 
and  was  content  with  eight  dollars.  But  you  get  her  down 
here  and  the  first  thing  I  know,  she's  run  eight  dollars  up 
to  eighteen.  Eighteen  dollars!  For  a  woman!  I'll  not 
pay  it.  You  can  go  and  tell  her  so." 

"You  mean  you'll  cut  the  rate?" 

"I  mean  I  won't  pay  any  female  eighteen  dollars  for  six 
days'  work!  That's  what  I  mean  and  it  stands!" 

"You  made  a  bargain  with  me  for  three  and  a  half  cents 
a  box.  I  get  the  cost  down  to  a  cent  and  a  half  and  you 
want  to  break  your  promise." 

"I'll  not  pay  any  girl  eighteen  dollars  for  six  days'  work !" 
This  outrageous  thing  had  become  an  obsession  with  John- 
athan.  "Why,  you  obstreperous  young  dolt,  you've  gone 
and  gathered  an  organization  here  that's  making  so  much 
stuff  I  can't  get  materials  or  orders  to  keep  it  going!  And 
you  want  to  pay  one  girl  eighteen  dollars  a  week !" 

"I  should  think  the  proper  thing  would  be  to  hustle  out 
and  put  in  your  valuable  time  getting  more  orders  —  not 
waste  it  worrying  over  the  high  wages  one  clever  girl  has 
managed  to  make  by  applying  herself  to  her  job." 

"Don't  give  me  any  lip,  young  man!  I  know  how  much 
business  I  want  to  do.  And  you've  built  an  organization 
to  do  too  much !  Another  phase  of  your  youthful  indis 
cretion,  the  same  that  made  you  write  that  obscene  poem 
about  slaves  before  you  knew  your  own  mind  and  I  stopped 
it.  If  I  gave  you  a  free  rein  here,  you'd  wreck  the  place!" 

"If  you  gave  me  a  free  rein  here  I'd  build  a  sales  force 
that  would  find  firms  who  would  consume  our  boxes,"  the 
lad  answered  grimly. 

"And  where  would  the  money  come  from  to  swing  all 
that  business?" 

"I'd  go  to  the  bank  and  borrow  it!" 

"Huh !  I  suppose  you  think  banks  are  just  lying  awake 
nights  hoping  I'll  come  and  ask  to  relieve  them  of  their 
surplus?  Maybe  you'd  enjoy  knowing  that  I've  been  to 
the  banks  here  twice.  Each  time  I've  been  refused,  but 


MORE  ROMANCING  173 

you'd  still  keep  paying  eighteen  dollars  to  eight-dollar  girls." 

Nathan  felt  that  he  knew  why  Judge  Farmer,  president 
of  the  People's  Bank,  might  have  refused  Johnathan  money. 
But  he  said  nothing. 

"Well,"  snapped  Johnathan.     "Answer  me!" 

"If  the  bank  wouldn't  loan  me  money,  then  I'd  get  out 
and  incorporate  this  business  and  put  out  some  seven  per 
cent,  stock.  I've  got  twenty-five  girls  and  four  men  up 
stairs.  A  certain  percentage  of  work  must  be  turned  off 
to  carry  this  overhead,  —  rent,  taxes,  depreciation,  insurance. 
It  isn't  how  little  we  can  do  or  how  much  we  can  do.  It's 
how  much  we're  obliged  to  do,  to  operate  at  a  profit.  And 
I've  found  that  figure  exactly.  Not  a  man  or  girl  can  be 
turned  off  without  crippling  our  output  and  losing  us 
money  by  running  up  our  overhead  per  unit  of  production. 
What's  more,  if  you  cut  the  piece  rate,  the  girls  are  going 
to  get  discouraged  and  quit,  or  if  they  don't  quit,  do  just 
enough  to  hold  their  jobs.  What's  the  answer?  It's  some 
body's  business  around  here  to  find  orders  and  I'd  say  it 
was  up  to  you.  I've  done  my  part.  Now  you  do  yours." 

Johnathan  arose,  his  face  pale. 

"We'll  go  into  that  some  other  time,  you  saucy  young 
pup,"  he  snapped.  "Just  now  I've  got  to  get  to  the  bank. 
But  I'm  marking  down  the  Richards  girl  to  ten  dollars. 
That's  all  I'll  give  her.  Not  a  cent  more.  Not  a  cent  less ! 
Ten  dollars!" 

"But,  Pa!"  cried  the  son  aghast.  "You're  not  going  to 
cut  her  this  week  —  on  the  work  she's  done  already  ?" 

"Four  times  I've  told  you  I'll  pay  no  female  eighteen  dol 
lars  a  week.  I  could  get  a  man  —  a  man  as  old  as  me  —  to 
work  for  eighteen  dollars !" 

"What's  the  use  of  a  man  —  what  ice  would  a  man  cut 
anyhow  —  if  a  girl  can  do  the  work  as  well  and  quicker  ?" 

"Don't  sass  me  and  don't  argue !  This  is  my  business  and 
you're  my  son !  I  propose  to  run  both  in  any  way  I  please." 

And  Johnathan  slammed  out  the  door,  fully  persuaded 
that  no  man's  earthly  trial  is  greater  than  headstrong  off 
spring. 

The  pay  envelopes  were  made  out  that  afternoon,  John 
athan  getting  great  enjoyment  from  writing  the  names  on 
each  in  a  very  precise  hand  and  admiring  his  penmanship 
with  great  self-pride.  When  they  were  filled,  he  took  them 


174  THE  FOG 

upstairs  personally.  "Paying  off"  was  something  he  always 
reserved  for  himself.  It  gave  dignity  to  the  owner  of  a 
business.  The  help  thereby  associated  him  with  money. 
Finally  the  Richards  girl's  envelope  remained. 

"You  give  her  this,  and  explain  why  it's  short,"  the  father 
ordered,  tossing  it  across  to  the  boy  when  he  returned  to  the 
office.  Such  a  thing  was  good  discipline  for  obstreperous 
youth. 

Nathan  removed  his  overalls  and  went  upstairs.  He 
had  eight  dollars  clandestinely  removed  from  the  petty 
cash. 

"There's  a  mistake  in  your  envelope,  Milly,"  he  said.  "It 
only  holds  ten  dollars.  So  here's  the  other  eight  to  make  it 
right.  And  Milly?" 

"Yes?" 

"Monday  morning  I'm  not  coming  back.  If  you  know  of 
a  better  job,  you'd  better  take  it." 

"Where  you  goin',  Nathan  ?" 

"Back  to  the  tannery,  to  keep  the  books  for  Mr.  Gridley." 

The  girl's  face  fell.  She  was  pretty  in  a  dumpish,  com 
mon  sort  of  way.  She  flushed  slightly  and  turned  toward 
the  window  looking  down  on  the  acres  of  rushes. 

"I  dunno  as  I  care  to  keep  my  job  here  —  if  you're  going, 
Nathan,"  she  confessed. 

Then  she  fled  down  the  stairs,  leaving  the  boy  stupefied. 


ii 

It  was  Saturday  night  and  Nathan  went  up  to  the  Gridley 
front  door  and  rang  the  bell.  The  Duchess  answered.  The 
boy  asked  for  her  husband. 

Old  Caleb  had  been  the  only  real  father  Nathan  had  ever 
known.  Old  Caleb  had  been  the  first  to  notice  him,  a  poor 
young  slave  in  an  abattoir,  the  first  to  encourage  him,  to  treat 
him  kindly,  to  give  credence  and  deference  to  the  boy's  opin 
ions,  efforts  and  dreams.  It  had  been  old  Caleb  who  had 
kept  his  spark  of  self-confidence  alive  and  burning  when 
time  after  time  Johnathan  tried  to  extinguish  it.  Old  Caleb, 
let  it  be  stated  now,  loved  Nathan  like  a  son.  As  for 
Nathan's  love  of  old  Caleb,  it  stood  for  the  lad's  entire  faith 
in  human  nature.  If  old  Caleb  had  ever  betrayed  his  con- 


MORE  ROMANCING  175 

fidence  the  milk  of  human  kindness  in  the  lad  might  have 
turned  to  sour  clabber. 

"He's  in  his  study,  on  the  second  floor,"  declared  the 
Duchess  grandly. 

Nathan  knew  his  way  upstairs ;  he  had  been  there  before. 
The  Duchess  returned  to  a  visitor  in  the  side  room  as  Nathan 
passed  the  portieres. 

The  boy  was  closeted  with  old  Caleb  half  the  evening. 

"No,  bub,  I  wouldn't  quit  your  old  man  yet,"  the  tanner 
advised.  "My  advice  to  you  is  to  mark  your  time.  Always 
remember  that  the  man  who  can  deliver  the  goods  is  the  man 
who  rules!  You've  delivered  the  goods  down  to  the  box 
shop  and  so  you're  the  real  ruler.  All  your  old  man  needs 
is  a  lesson.  You  stay  out  for  a  week;  pretend  you're  sick 
if  you  want,  then  let  him  try  to  boss  the  gang.  He'll  have 
you  back  —  high,  wide  and  handsome  —  with  a  valuable  les 
son  learned  in  addition.  At  least  let's  hope  so." 

"He  tried  to  get  some  money  at  the  bank "  Nathan 

began. 

"Sure !  I  know !  I'm  head  o'  the  discount  committee.  I 
turned  down  his  loan.  A  man  that  can't  run  his  family  no 
better  than  your  dad's  run  his  can't  run  no  business  —  on 
bank  money,  anyhow.  If  he  gets  sick  and  quits,  or  there's 
any  way  for  you  to  have  full  charge  o'  the  business,  come  and 
see  me,  bub.  But  your  dad's  exactly  my  idea  o'  nothin'  to 
brag  about,  and  the  sooner  he  finds  it  out,  the  better !" 

Tears  came  to  Nathan's  eyes. 

"I'm  much  obliged,  Mr.  Gridley,"  he  choked. 

"That's  all  right,  bub.  Come  'round  some  day  and  we'll 
talk  poetry.  We  was  so  kind  of  busy  boomin'  the  leather 
business  just  before  your  dad  took  you  away  that  we  almost 
forget  poetry,  didn't  we  ?  But  maybe  we  can  ring  in  a  day 
or  two  yet.  Writin'  any  more  yourself  ?" 

"I've  been  so  interested  in  getting  the  shop  running 
smoothly  I  haven't  had  time." 

"Pshaw,  now!  Don't  you  go  lettin'  business  get  ye  too 
hard !  You're  a  poet,  young  feller,  and  you  got  a  talent  that 
demands  development." 

"I  wish  I  could  make  dad  see  it." 

"He's  goin'  to  see  it  one  o'  these  days.  But  I'm  all-fired 
'fraid  —  it's  goin'  to  be  too  late !" 

Nathan    reluctantly    withdrew    and    started    downstairs. 


176  THE  FOG 

Caleb  came  after  him  in  slippered  feet,  vest  unbuttoned. 
This  sort  of  thing  always  horrified  his  Duchess.  If  she 
could  have  had  her  way,  the  tanner  would  have  spent  his 
time  at  home  in  a  dinner  jacket. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  a  young  woman  was  being  helped 
into  her  cloak.  It  was  a  bright  red  cloak,  trimmed  with 
gray  lambskin.  She  had  been  the  caller  in  the  side  room 
when  Nathan  went  up. 

"Know  this  girl,  maybe?'  asked  Caleb  of  Nathan. 

The  boy  colored. 

"I've  not  had  that  pleasure,"  he  answered.  He  had  heard 
the  minister's  wife  so  rise  to  a  similar  situation  and  consid 
ered  it  neat. 

"Introduce  'em,  Clem,"  suggested  Caleb.  His  wife's  name 
was  Clementina  but  Clem  was  plenty  good  enough  for 
Caleb.  She  was  far  from  being  a  Duchess  to  her  hus 
band. 

The  woman  withered  her  husband  with  a  glance  of  loath 
ing,  then  forced  a  wooden  smile. 

"This  is  Mr.  Nathan  Forge,"  she  condescended.  "Mr. 
Forge,  Miss  Carol  Gardner." 

"Hello !"  said  Miss  Carol  Gardner.    And  she  giggled. 

Nathan  bowed  stiffly.  He  raised  his  hand,  lowered  it, 
raised  it  again,  thrust  it  behind  him. 

"Mr.  Forge  has  been  engaged  with  my  husband  in  the 
leather  business,"  the  Duchess  explained  largely.  Then  to 
Nathan,  "Miss  Gardner  has  recently  come  from  Ohio  to 
visit  her  grandparents,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Archibald  Cuttne.' " 

Nathan  bowed  stiffly  again.  It  was  characteristic  of  him, 
a  habit  he  had  acquired  the  last  few  years,  to  turn  his  muti 
lated  ear  away  from  those  with  whom  he  might  be  con 
versing.  But  his  eyes  had  met  the  roguish,  laughing  face 
of  the  Gardner  girl.  And  he  had  seen  —  enough.  She  was 
very  easy  to  gaze  upon. 

"If  you're  leavin',"  suggested  Caleb  to  Miss  Gardner, 
"Nat  better  hoof  it  along  with  you  to  see  you  don't  up-end 
on  the  ice.  The  walk  is  slippery  to-night." 

The  Duchess  assumed  a  "this-is-what-I-have-to-endure" 
expression  while  Nathan  tried  to  find  his  tongue.  Referring 
to  this  girl's  risk  of  accident  between  the  Forge  residence 
and  the  business  section  as  an  up-ending  was  embarrassing 
to  the  ninth  degree. 


MORE  ROMANCING  177 

"If  I'm  going  your  way,  I'd  be  glad  to  see  you  safe  home," 
the  boy  volunteered. 

"Oh,  that's  so  sweet  of  you!"  responded  the  girl.  She 
found  her  gray  lambskin  muff,  buried  the  lower  part  of  her 
oval  face  in  it,  looked  slantwise  at  Nathan  and  laughed  that 
mischievous  giggle  again. 

They  went  down  the  steps  to  the  sidewalk.  It  was  a 
stinging  cold  night.  The  sky  was  clear,  deep  sapphire.  The 
full  moon  resembled  a  Japanese  print,  shining  through  bare, 
gaunt  limbs  of  winter-creaking  trees. 

"I  better  take  your  arm,  Miss  Gardner,"  the  boy  sug 
gested.  "You  might  fall  down  at  that." 

"Grab  hold  !"  the  girl  assented. 

Nathan  slid  his  hand  in  the  warm  aperture  between  her 
right  sleeve  and  her  soft  body.  His  fingers  closed  about  that 
plump  arm  delicately.  The  girl  in  red  and  gray,  a  head 
shorter  than  himself,  pressed  against  him  with  the  usual 
helplessness  of  the  man-escorted  female. 

And  at  contact  with  her  body  thus  —  in  that  instant  —  he 
knew  he  had  grown  a  man. 

Miss  Gardner  slipped  on  the  Pine  Street  walk,  whether  by 
accident  or  design  is  unknown.  The  thing  that  counted  was 
that  Nathan  caught  her  in  time  and  she  did  not  resent  it. 
In  fact,  she  rather  enjoyed  it.  She  laughed  gleefully  and 
turned  her  small,  snub-nosed  face  up  to  his,  coyly  and 
viciously  close. 

"I'm  awfully  clumsy,"  she  confided.  She  did  not  en 
lighten  him  whether  she  was  equally  clumsy  when  walking 
without  an  escort. 

This  opened  conversational  possibilities.  Nathan  averred 
that  she  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  So  they  traversed  two 
blocks,  'Miss  Gardner  insisting  that  she  was  clumsy  and 
Nathan  making  it  his  portion  of  the  argument  that  she  was 
not.  Anybody  might  slip  on  the  old  icy  walks,  as  icy  as  they 
were  around  the  little  old  town  of  Paris.  They  had  a  rotten 
old  lot  of  selectmen  —  no  sand  or  ashes  on  the  walks  or  any 
thing  —  so  on  toward  Walnut  Street. 

"So  you're  in  the  leather  business  with  Mr.  Gridley,"  the 
girl  observed. 

"No !  I  was  in  the  leather  business  with  Mr.  Gridley. 
Now  I'm  in  the  paper-box  business  with  my  father." 

Miss  Gardner  observed  that  it  must  be  an  awful  interest- 


i;8  THE  FOG 

ing  business.  Nathan  observed,  Oh,  he  didn't  know ;  some 
times  it  was  and  then  again,  sometimes  it  wasn't. 

"And  what  position  in  the  business  do  you  occupy?"  the 
girl  asked  next. 

"Oh,  I  run  the  place,"  Nathan  told  her  with  a  careless  ges 
ture,  as  though  running  places  was  the  most  inconsequential 
and  offhand  job  in  the  world;  undoubtedly  he  could  run 
places  before  breakfast  or  between  meals  or  in  his  sleep. 
So  Miss  Gardner  was  left  to  infer. 

"Very  interesting !"  the  girl  commented.  "And  how  many 
employees  have  you  in  your  factory?" 

Nathan  was  suddenly  ashamed  of  his  factory,  the  size 
of  it.  Oh,  to  be  able  to  describe  it  in  hundreds  of  thousands 
or  tens  of  thousands ! 

"Twenty-nine,"  he  said  truthfully,  with  difficulty. 

"I'm  sure  we're  going  to  be  awful  good  friends,"  re 
marked  Miss  Gardner  quickly.  "I'm  so  lonesome  here,  you 
know,  a  new  place  and  all."  Being  a  stranger  in  a  new 
place  was  hard,  hard. 

Nathan  assured  her  he  knew  how  she  felt  exactly.  He 
would  do  his  utmost  to  see  that  she  was  not  lonely.  He 
promised  it.  It  really  was  his  duty,  as  a  resident  and  a 
matter  of  civic  responsibility.  Strangers  must  be  graciously 
acclimated  and  made  to  feel  at  home.  That  was  only  ordi 
nary  hospitality. 

"I've  been  living  out  in  Ohio  with  my  father,"  said  Miss 
Gardner.  "But  he  married  again  and  my  stepmother  was 
cruel  to  me.  So  I  came  east  to  stay  with  grandpa  and 
grandma  and  enjoy  life  for  a  little  time  before  I  have  to  go 
back  to  it  all  again."  This  sort  of  thing  was  also  hard, 
hard. 

Naturally,  likewise  as  a  resident  and  a  taxpayer,  Nathan 
was  duly  sympathetic.  How  could  any  one  —  male  or  female 
—  be  "cruel"  to  such  a  delicious  little  woman  in  red  and 
gray?  He  tried  to  frame  phrases  appropriate  to  the  senti 
ment  but  decided  the  time  was  not  yet  auspicious  to  give 
them  utterance. 

"You  must  come  in,"  declared  the  Gardner  girl  when  they 
reached  old  Archie  Cuttner's  house.  "I'll  simply  not  take 
'No !'  I'm  so  deeply  grateful  to  you  for  seeing  me  home  so 
safely.  Why !  —  I  might  have  fallen  and  broken  a  limb !" 

By  her  tone  she  made  Nathan  feel  that  he  had  done  some- 


MORE  ROMANCING  179 

thing  akin  to  averting  a  national  panic,  or  negotiating  the 
peace  of  hemispheres.  He  went  in. 

Old  Archibald  Cuttner  "had  money"  —  at  least  enough  to 
"let  him  potter  'round"  after  a  lifetime  of  keeping  the  books 
in  the  Thorne  Knitting  Mills.  He  and  his  wife  lived  in  the 
eastern  half  of  a  big  double  house  at  the  far  end  of  Walnut 
Street.  Nathan  had  never  met  the  Cuttners,  but  he  felt 
agreeably  —  nay,  graciously  —  disposed  toward  them.  At 
least  they  were  fellow  Parisians  in  the  responsibility  of  en 
tertaining  the  stranger  within  the  gates  and  they  were  also 
her  relatives.  He  would  cultivate  the  Cuttners.  Why  had  it 
never  occurred  to  him  to  do  so  before  ?  Why,  some  day  he 
might  be  intimately  calling  Old  Archibald  "Grandpop!" 
Stranger  things  had  happened. 

There  was  to  be  no  cultivating  of  the  Cuttners  that  night, 
however.  Both  had  retired,  leaving  the  oil  center  lamp  burn 
ing  and  turned  down  low  on  the  reading  table. 

Nathan  followed  the  girl  into  the  close,  oil-scented  sitting 
room  furnished  in  mid-Victorian  and  with  Larkin  soap 
premiums.  There  was  a  horse-hair  sofa,  several  chairs, 
hideous  with  handworked  "tidies",  a  sewing  machine,  a 
what-not,  a  mantel  holding  curios  from  the  four  corners  of 
the  earth  —  and  Troy,  N.  Y.  —  and  an  upright  piano  of  two- 
day  installation. 

"Do  you  sing,  Mr.  Forge  ?"  asked  this  siren  from  Ohio. 

Nathan  countered  by  desiring  to  know  if  she  played.  And 
when  she  said  a  little,  not  much,  Nathan  affirmed  he  also 
sang  a  little,  not  much.  And  Miss  Gardner  "took  his  things" 
and  hung  them  in  the  adjoining  bedroom  and  came  back  into 
the  sitting  room,  feeling  of  her  belt  in  the  back  and  primping 
and  patting  her  hair.  Likewise  she  produced  a  pair  of  tiny 
pince-nez  spectacles  and  polished  them  with  great  care  while 
Nathan  kept  his  mutilated  ear  away  from  her  and  wished 
to  high  heaven  he  had  given  better  attention  lately  to  his 
nails. 

Putting  on  the  spectacles  at  last,  Miss  Gardner  poked  her 
lacy  handkerchief  away  in  her  blouse  and  sank  in  an  op 
posite  chair.  She  remarked  that  it  was  fortunate  Grandpa 
Cuttner  had  retired,  because  now  they  had  the  house  all  to 
themselves  and  Nathan  agreed  it  was  indeed  fortunate 
Grandpa  Cuttner  had  retired,  because  they  had  the  house  all 
to  themselves,  although  what  they  were  going  to  do  with  the 


i8o  THE  FOG 

house,  now  that  they  had  it  all  to  themselves,  remained  to  be 
disclosed. 

Seated  beside  the  lamp,  Nathan  had  his  first  satisfactory 
look  at  the  girl  who  might  possibly  "be  his  consort  and  his 
comfort  down  all  the  future  years."  Undoubtedly  both 
would  always  look  back  to  this  night  and  cherish  it  as  one  of 
Life's  Great  Moments!  And  to  think  he  was  living  in  it 
now  —  that  very  instant ! 

She  was  a  well-built  girl,  rather  small  in  stature,  with  soft 
chestnut  hair  and  large  hips.  She  had  a  kissable  mouth  and 
a  slightly  snubbed  nose  and  pink,  shell-like  ears.  Likewise 
she  had  a  "You-don't-dare"  manner  that  was  tantalizing. 
She  pulled  her  heavy  mohair  skirt  down  quickly  over  her 
ankles  as  Nathan  sat  opposite  her  and  thereby  the  boy  ap 
preciated  she  was  very  modest  and  chaste  and  altogether  a 
worthy  object  for  the  bestowal  of  his  connubial  affections. 
He  tried  to  imagine  that  she  was  his  wife  already,  sitting  so 
domestically  beside  the  lamp,  and  came  back  to  earth  by 
realizing  she  held  an  open  library  book  in  her  lap  and  had 
launched  into  a  dissertation  on  the  decline  of  current  fiction. 

Nathan  clandestinely  smoothed  his  hair,  shot  his  cuffs,  got 
his  feet  stored  away  under  his  chair  with  minimum  display 
and  agreed  that  there  were  no  masters  like  the  old  masters. 
As  for  himself,  give  him  Dickens.  There  was  a  certain  style 
about  Dickens.  Then  at  the  psychological  moment  he  re 
marked  contemptuously: 

"I  write  a  bit,  myself!" 

"You  write!    What?" 

"Poetry!" 

"No!" 

"Oh,  yes!" 

"Why!  how  perfectly  stunning!"  It  developed  the  Gard 
ner  girl  was  just  wild  about  poetry.  And  had  Nathan  ever 
had  anything  published  ? 

Nathan  gave  her  a  blase  smile  such  as  Kipling  might  be 
stow  on  a  high-school  sophomore  from  Racine,  Wisconsin. 
Certainly  he  had  been  published.  No  one  could  count  them 
selves  real  writers  or  poets  until  they  had  been  published. 
Did  she  happen  to  have  a  file  of  last  year's  Telegraphs 
handy  ? 

Unfortunately  the  Cuttners  did  not  keep  such  a  lexicon 
of  local  pabulum  handy  about  the  house.  The  Daily  Tele- 


MORE  ROMANCING  181 

graph  served  a  more  practical  purpose  each  morning  by 
kindling  the  Cuttner  fire.  But  it  really  didn't  matter !  Any 
body  in  Paris  could  tell  her  who  Nathan  Forge  was  and 
what  he  had  done.  All  she  had  to  do  was  ask. 

The  Gardner  girl  was  gratifyingly  impressed.  To  think 
she  had  come  to  know  a  poet  and  never  realized  it ! 

Nathan  drummed  his  ringers  on  the  chair  arm,  tightened 
his  tie,  took  his  feet  from  storage  long  enough  to  tap  a 
tattoo  on  the  carpet,  put  them  back  hastily,  hitched  on  his 
chair,  remarked  it  was  too  bad  the  Cuttners  had  gone  to  bed, 
for  that  unfortunate  retirement  of  course  precluded  any 
chance  of  music. 

Miss  Carol  Gardner  immediately  assured  him  that 
Grandpa  Cuttner  loved  music,  even  in  his  sleep,  and  she 
would  go  to  the  public  library  to-morrow  and  read  every 
thing  Nathan  had  ever  written.  In  a  sort  of  daze  at  thus 
entertaining  a  celebrity  unawares,  Carol  moved  across  and 
twirled  the  piano  stool  —  no  one  ever  saw  a  piano  stool 
twirled  to  its  proper  height  for  extemporaneous  performance 
anyhow  —  and What  could  Nathan  sing  ? 

Nathan  affected  a  great  ennui  as  he  left  his  chair,  and 
they  went  through  the  sheet  music  and  popular  ballads  of 
the  day  with  their  heads  rather  close  together. 

Did  he  know  this  and  did  she  know  that?  It  was  hard 
finding  selections  with  which  both  were  familiar.  But  this 
was  awful  pretty  and  maybe  he  could  catch  the  words.  So 
Carol  played  the  opening  bars  of  "Come  Take  a  Ride  in  My 
Airship,"  which  was  just  then  going  the  rounds  of  the  pic 
ture  shows,  graphophones  and  street  pianos. 

Nathan  hummed  this  initial  experiment  in  melodious  avia 
tion  and  then  declared  he  believed  it  too  high  for  his  voice. 
He  had  something  more  negotiable  ready:  "Everybody 
Works  but  Father."  The  sentiment  was  rather  silly,  of 
course,  but  the  tune  was  catchy. 

Between  a  badly  tuned  piano  and  Nathan's  cold  —  which 
he  had  not  realized  he  possessed  until  that  moment  —  the 
symposium  on  parental  aversion  to  physical  exertion  was 
duly  delineated.  By  which  time  both  conspirators  in  this 
nocturnal  songfest  had  lost  much  of  their  self-consciousness 
and  were  "ready  for  most  anything"  in  the  way  of  lyric  and 
harmony. 

Of  course  it  was  only  natural  that  ballads  of  a  more  senti- 


182  THE  FOG 

mental  and  intimate  persuasion  should  be  acceptable  by 
both.  So  down  in  the  pile,  which  had  recently  come  from 
A-higher,  Nathan  found  more  sober  and  touching  offerings : 
"  'Neath  the  Old  Acorn  Tree"  was  particularly  appropriate, 
especially  the  last  verse : 

"Out  in  the  golden  west  to-night  I'm  dreaming, 

The  moon  shines  o'er  the  mountains,  clear  and  cold; 
I'm  going  East  where  candle-lights  are  gleaming, 

Again  to  wander  through  the  scenes  of  old. 
The  old  mill  wheel  seems  silent,  all  is  lonely, 

No  loving  form  is  waiting  there  for  .ne. 
In  fancy  I  can  hear  a  dear  voice  calling : 

'Dear  heart,  I'm  sleeping  'neath  the  acorn  tree.' " 

"How  sweet  and  beautifully  sad !"  affirmed  Miss  Gardner. 
"Death  is  always  so  sweet  and  sad,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Forge  ?  But 
then,  not  so  sad  as  disappointed  love.  Have  you  ever  been 
in  love,  Mr.  Forge?" 

"Yes,"  responded  Nathan  thickly. 

"Oh,  how  romantic!  And  did  you  suffer  a  great  disap 
pointment  ?" 

"Oh,  I  lived  through  it,"  returned  the  boy  with  a  sad 
laugh. 

"But  what  you  really  mean  to  say  is  that  it  left  its  scars 
on  your  soul.  True  love  always  does  that,  doesn't  it,  Mr. 
Forge?" 

Nathan  began  to  feel  that  the  temperature  of  the  room 
was  uncomfortably  high. 

"I  guess  I  don't  know  tnuch  about  true  love,"  he  returned. 
"To  be  frank,  I've  never  run  up  against  the  real  thing." 

"I  understand  perfectly.  You're  waiting  for  some  great 
overwhelming  passion  to  come  into  your  life  and  sweep  you 
off  your  feet.  There's  always  an  overwhelming  passion  in 
everybody's  life,  isn't  there,  Mr.  Forge?  How  true!  How 
true !" 

Nathan  had  an  *mcomfortable  hunch  that  the  Gardner 
girl  was  talking  drivel.  So  he  put  a  new  piece  of  music 
on  the  rack  before  her. 

"Let's  play  *His,"  he  suggested  in  lieu  of  a  lowered  win 
dow. 

They  hollered  through  "The  Good  Old  Summer-Time," 
or  at  least  Nathan  did,  and  old  man  Cuttner  in  the  next  room 


MORE  ROMANCING  183 

—  the  same  who  liked  music  even  in  his  sleep  —  arose  on  one 
elbow  in  the  dark  and  swept  his  arm  around  the  floor  at  the 
head  of  his  bed  in  hope  of  locating  a  shoe  which  he  could 
hurl  at  the  door.  Not  rinding  any  shoe,  however,  he  slammed 
over  angrily  and  jerked  the  bedclothes  over  his  head,  mut 
tering  something  about  brainless  young  cootes  who  didn't 
have  gray  matter  enough  to  let  honest  folks  get  a  good  night's 
rest,  and  who  in  hell  had  Carrie  picked  up  so  quick  before 
she'd  been  in  town  two  days  ? 

"And  have  you  ever  been  in  love?"  asked  Nathan  amus 
edly,  as  he  sought  in  the  avalanche  of  melodious  sentiment 
for  more  breaches  of  the  Cuttner  nocturnal  peace. 

Miss  Gardner  played  the  scale  with  one  finger. 

"Oh,  there's  a  dear-enough  boy  back  in  A-higher  that 
loves  me  to  distraction.  I  suppose  I'll  marry  him  eventu 
ally.  But  I  can't  quite  decide  whether  I  love  him  enough 
yet." 

The  sheet-music  titles  fused  before  Nathan's  gaze  and  his 
stomach  turned  over. 

"Has  he  asked  you  yet  ?"  was  Nathan's  quiet  question.  He 
hummed  through  the  tune  of  the  sheet  upon  his  knees  —  "On 
the  Hills  of  My  Old  New  Hampshire  Home" — as  he  asked 
it. 

"Oh,  yes!"  (Long  sigh!)  "But  there's  quite  a  story  to 
it.  Some  day  maybe  I'll  tell  it  to  you.  I'd  really  like  your 
advice  as  to  what  it's  best  to  do." 

Nathan  felt  himself  extremely  competent  to  give  advice 
on  what  it  was  best  for  her  to  do.  In  fact,  he  rather  knew 
in  advance  what  the  tenor  of  that  advice  would  be,  regard 
less  of  the  detail  of  the  predicament.  Music  rather  lost  its 
charm  after  that.  Carol  arose  and  walked  across  to  the  win 
dow.  She  stood  looking  out  into  the  winter  moonlight  where 
the  shade  was  but  half-way  drawn. 

"A  girl  now  ought  to  marry  for  love  alone,  hadn't  she  ?" 
was  her  question. 

"Absolutely !"  affirmed  Nathan. 

"Yes.  I've  always  thought  so!  There  isn't  anything 
greater  in  the  world  than  love,  is  there  ?" 

"No,"  cried  the  boy  grimly.  "And  if  more  people  would 
only  stop  to  realize  it,  this  world  would  be  a  better  place. 
Happier,  anyhow !" 

"It's  so  good  to  get  a  fresh,  virile,  masculine  viewpoint  on 


184  THE  FOG 

so  important  a  subject.  Because  it  affects  one's  life  so 
vitally,  doesn't  it  ?"  sighed  Carol. 

"My  God !"  groaned  Archibald  Cuttner  in  his  bedroom. 
Whereupon  his  wife  curtly  advised  him  that  he  was  pulling 
the  bedclothes  all  up  at  the  bottom. 

Carol  went  on : 

"And  we  can't  see  a  problem  in  proper  perspective  when 
it's  up  too  close  to  our  noses,  now,  can  we  ?" 

"Usually  not,"  agreed  the  boy. 

"Do  you  know,  Mr.  Forge,  I  think  we're  going  to  be  aw 
fully  good  friends.  We  understand  each  other  so  com 
pletely.  And  it's  such  a  relief  for  a  girl  to  have  a  firm,  true 
gentleman-friend  to  turn  to  —  in  such  a  vital  matter  as  love 
and  marriage." 

"I  wish  you  could  have  read  some  of  the  stuff  I've  writ 
ten,"  observed  Nathan.  "You'd  get  my  viewpoint  exactly." 

"It  must  be  very  wonderful,  Mr.  Forge.  You  understand 
human  nature  so  perfectly." 

Nathan  thought  it  discreet  to  preserve  a  dignified  silence, 
as  befitted  one  competent  to  advise  perplexed  young  women 
on  such  momentous  subjects  as  love  and  marriage. 

"I'm  hungry!"  declared  the  girl  suddenly.  "You  wait 
here.  I'll  see  what  I  can  rustle  in  the  pantry." 

Nathan  arranged  the  music  in  order  and  laid  it  away  on 
the  lower  shelf  of  the  what-not.  He  paced  the  room  only 
to  sink  down  into  a  rocker,  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  pockets. 

So  he  had  found  the  girl  at  last ! 

Vaguely  he  remembered  a  Biblical  verse  —  "All  things 
work  together  for  good  to  those  who  love  God."  He  won 
dered  just  how  much  he  loved  God.  His  conscience  pricked 
him  a  bit  as  he  recollected  his  caustic  comment  upon  the 
Almighty  in  the  past.  Somehow  the  Lord  was  magnani 
mously  returning  good  for  evil.  Yes,  he  had  treated  God 
rather  scurvily.  And  in  return,  the  Almighty  had  sent  him 
this  great  happiness!  Henceforth  Nathan  would  take  his 
Sunday-morning  presence  at  church  more  seriously. 

Nat  decided  to  apply  himself  at  the  factory  with  redoubled 
energy,  beginning  the  ensuing  Monday  morning.  What  was 
a  mere  quarrel  with  his  father  over  one  cheap  girl's  wages 
beside  losing  the  financial  chance  to  keep  his  wife-to-be  in  the 
style  and  luxury  she  deserved?  What  if  the  Richards  girl 
did  get  a  raw  deal?  Who  was  the  Richards  girl,  anyhow? 


MORE  ROMANCING  185 

Nathan  felt  like  offering  her  up  on  the  industrial  altar  with 
out  a  qualm,  —  in  the  same  class  with  the  A-higher  Un 
known. 

Carol  returned.  She  had  a  big  fancy  plate  holding  half  a 
layer  cake  and  a  pitcher  of  milk. 

"It's  all  I  could  find,"  she  apologized.  "But  I'm  hungry 
enough  to  eat  a  boiled  owl." 

Nathan  affirmed  he  likewise  was  sufficiently  emaciated  to 
assimilate  boiled  owl,  but  the  cake  would  be  a  perfectly  sat 
isfactory  substitute,  seeing  there  was  no  boiled  owl  to  be 
had  at  that  hour.  And  so  he  was  served  to  a  generous  help 
ing  of  the  cake  and  dropped  jam  on  his  pants  and  crumbs  on 
the  floor.  Whereupon  he  was  advised  not  to  mind  —  What 
were  a  few  crumbs  on  the  floor? — and  as  for  the  jam  on  his 
pants,  she  would  get  him  a  damp  rag  and  she  di,d. 

But  when  Miss  Gardner  affirmed  that  she  had  made  the 
cake,  Nathan  ate  with  a  new  relish  and  the  fastidiousness  of 
an  epicure. 

So  she  was  a  cook !  She  could  make  cake  as  good  as  the 
sample  under  present  mastication !  What  a  girl !  And  what 
a  wife!  Nathan  wondered  if  he  hadn't  better  get  down  on 
his  knees  that  night  and  humbly  say  some  regular  prayers. 

Of  course  she  depreciated  her  ability  as  a  cake-maker. 
This  was  merely  a  little  old  mess  she  had  "thrown  together." 
Some  night  he  must  come  to  tea  and  she  would  show  him 
what  a  real  meal  was  like.  Would  he  come  to  tea  ? 

Oh,  well,  Nathan  might.  He  applied  himself  rather  dili 
gently  at  the  "office",  didn't  have  much  time  for  social  non 
sense.  Still  there  were  occasions  when  it  was  beneficial  for 
a  man's  head  to  forget  business.  Yes,  possibly  he  might 
squeeze  out  a  night  and  come  to  tea. 

The  cake  being  eaten  and  the  milk  consumed  —  so  much 
so  that  Old  Man  Cuttner  ate  his  porridge  next  morning 
milkless — and  the  hour  being  late,  there  was  nothing  for 
Nat  to  do  but  take  his  departure.  Which  he  did  —  regret 
fully. 

"I'm  depending  on  you  to  help  me  with  my  problem,  Mr. 
Forge,"  was  the  last  thing  the  girl  whispered  to  him  sol 
emnly  in  the  cold  front  hall. 

"Depend  upon  it,  I  shall  not  fail  you,"  were  Nathan's 
magnanimous  words,  closing  that  wonderful  evening.  And 
he  walked  off  with  his  head  high  in  the  air,  manfully,  master- 


186  THE  FOG 

fully,  to  skid  badly  on  the  ice  by  the  gate  and  turn  bottom 
up  with  his  hat  flattened  beneath  him.  But  the  Cuttner  front 
door  had  closed.  His  fiancee  had  not  seen. 

Therefore  Nathan  picked  himself  up  painfully,  knocked 
the  dents  from  his  hat,  limped  more  carefully  down  the  rest 
of  the  sidewalk  and  came  back  to  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

VALLEYS   OF   AVALON 


It  was  a  rainy  Sunday  afternoon  in  March.  Nathan  lay 
on  his  bed  and  tried  to  read.  But  his  book  was  developing 
into  a  love  story,  weak  and  asinine  beside  the  greater  love 
story  he  felt  he  was  living.  What  was  she  doing ;  how  was 
she  putting  in  that  long,  dreary,  windy,  Sunday  afternoon? 

A  febrile  restlessness  ached  in  Nathan's  limbs.  There 
was  a  hot,  uncontrollable  nervousness  in  his  torso.  The  girl's 
hazel  eyes  came  between  the  lines  of  his  story.  Her  face 
laughed  at  him  witchingly  'twixt  simile  and  metaphor.  Ver 
ily  the  heroine  of  his  narrative  was  but  a  painted  bawd  be 
side  the  diminuitive  figure  in  red  and  gray,  always  in  the 
background  of  Nathan's  mind. 

"I'll  go  calling  on  her,"  he  avowed.  "I'll  be  darned  if  I 
won't  go  calling  on  her." 

"Where  are  you  headed  for?"  his  father's  stern  voice  de 
manded  as  he  crept  softly  down  the  front  stairs. 

"Out  to  take  a  walk,"  the  son  answered  sullenly.  "I've 
read  so  long  my  head's  muddled." 

"I'll  go  with  you,"  announced  Johnathan.  He  arose  from 
the  couch  and  started  after  his  hat  and  coat.  Of  course  this 
was  manifestly  and  emphatically  what  Nathan  did  not  want. 
Yet  how  could  he  explain? 

Vague  rumors  had  come  to  Johnathan  of  late  about  his 
son  being  seen  in  the  outlying  sections  walking  with  a  girl. 
Johnathan  at  once  had  more  "load"  added  to  his  burden. 
For  ten  years  he  had  successfully  "kept  his  boy  away  from 
girls",  or  so  he  supposed.  That  was  all  very  well  while 
the  son  was  a  youngster.  Nathan  was  no  longer  a  youngster. 
He  was  eighteen  and  taller  than  his  father.  As  his  son  had 
grown  bigger  than  himself,  as  well  as  shown  an  alarming 
propensity  for  managing  his  own  affairs,  the  time  had  come 


i88  THE  FOG 

for  Johnathan  to  exercise  "discretion,  diplomacy  and  tact", 
getting  him  past  the  "girl  age."  It  being  Sunday  and  Na 
than's  restlessness  having  culminated  in  a  desire  to  walk, 
it  was  only  too  evident  that  he  meant  to  meet  a  girl.  There 
fore  Johnathan  would  frustrate  any  such  assignation  by 
becoming  Nathan's  companion  and  chaperone.  This  was  the 
father's  idea  of  exercising  discretion,  diplomacy  and  tact. 
A  couple  of  years  before  he  would  have  snapped,  "You'll  do 
nothing  of  the  sort.  Go  back  to  your  room."  But  the  boy 
had  to  be  given  a  little  more  leash  now.  He  must  not  be  op 
posed  openly.  He  must  be  frustrated. 

So  Nathan  bit  his  lip  in  anger  and  exasperation,  execrat 
ing  himself  for  not  sneaking  down  the  back  stairs.  He 
suffered  himself  to  go  to  walk  with  his  father  and  they 
talked  about  the  business.  Or  rather  Johnathan  talked  about 
business.  Nathan  answered  in  monosyllables. 


II 

Perhaps  this  tendency  of  Johnathan's  toward  sudden  dis 
cretion,  diplomacy  and  tact  had  been  partly  augmented  by 
the  past  month's  events  at  the  factory. 

The  boy  had  begun  to  show  a  perturbing  independence. 
He  gave  veiled  hints  daring  his  father  to  thrash  him.  For 
instance,  the  week  following  the  quarrel  about  the  Richards 
girl's  pay,  Nathan  had  absolutely  refused  to  work,  "sulked" 
was  what  John  Forge  called  it. 

"If  you  can  run  that  bunch  upstairs  better  than  I,  that's 
your  privilege,  Pa,"  was  the  way  he  had  put  it. 

Johnathan  had  purposed  to  demonstrate  whether  he  was 
to  be  bullied  and  bulldozed  by  a  few  spoiled  employees  and 
a  stiff-necked,  incorrigible  son.  He  had  talked  dramatically 
about  the  sharpness  of  a  serpent's  tooth,  thrown  things  about 
the  office,  stormed  upstairs,  donned  a  duster  coat  and  pro 
ceeded  to  "boss  his  own  factory." 

He  had  "bossed"  it  so  adequately  and  completely  that  at 
twenty  minutes  to  three  o'clock  that  same  afternoon,  the  men 
"walked  out  flat",  and  all  the  girls  but  Milly  Richards  had 
been  mysteriously  missing  one  by  one  each  time  Johnathan 
came  back  from  office  calls  downstairs. 

Johnathan  said  all  right!  he  was  glad  they  had  gone  —  it 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  189 

saved  him  the  trouble  of  firing  a  lot  of  cheap  help  whom 
his  boy  had  spoiled  with  too  much  money.  He  would  hire 
new  and  train  them  as  he  wanted  them  trained.  Meanwhile 
he  'phoned  for  Edith  and  his  wife  to  come  down  and  paste 
boxes.  Mrs.  Forge  came  humbly  enough  but  a  dour  time 
followed  with  Edith.  According  to  Johnathan  she  was  as 
similating  altogether  too  much  of  her  brother's  growing  in- 
corrigibility. 

During  the  next  day  John  began  hiring  "new"  help.  It 
was  a  discouraging  business.  All  workmen  were  spoiled 
these  days,  anyhow.  They  knew  their  places  no  longer. 
They  expected  too  much  money.  All  the  men  who  re 
sponded  wanted  three  to  four  dollars  a  day.  No  girls  could 
be  procured  on  a  piece-work  basis  at  any  price  because  the 
cutting  of  the  piece  rate  had  quickly  percolated  through  the 
laboring  element  of  the  community.  John  "took  on"  old 
Mike  Taro  to  help  unload  a  car  of  cardboard  and  two 
rouged  and  perfumed  young  ladies  who  had  never  held  one 
job  for  two  consecutive  weeks  anywhere  in  our  section  of 
Vermont.  They  were  temporarily  willing  to  accept  three 
dollars  a  week  apiece  because  they  had  "gentlemen  friends", 
they  explained,  who  would  help  their  otherwise  slender 
exchequers.  But  all  three  of  these  failed  to  show  up  for 
work  the  second  morning  because  Taro  was  dead  drunk, 
and  the  rouged  young  ladies  had  been  mysteriously  warned 
to  remain  in  discreet  desuetude  or  direful  calamities  were 
liable  to  fall  upon  them  from  unexpected  quarters,  chiefly 
police. 

The  fourth  day  Johnathan  sent  for  Joe  Partridge,  one  of 
Nathan's  cutter-men.  Joe  came  down  late  in  the  afternoon 
dressed  in  his  painful  best  and  smoking  a  cheap  cigar. 
Johnathan  took  him  into  the  office  and  "went  into  confer 
ence"  with  him.  Joe  listened  for  a  time  with  an  exasperat 
ing  lack  of  servility. 

"I  don't  understand  none  of  them  big  words,"  Joe  finally 
confessed.  "But  so  far  as  us  working  folks  is  concerned, 
the  situation  is  just  this :  Your  boy  Nat  knows  how  to  run 
this  business  better'n  you.  And  until  he  comes  back,  we 
don't  care  about  working." 

This  was  flat  and  frank.    Johnathan  was  angrily  jolted. 

"If  that's  the  way  you  feel  about  it,  you'll  never  come 
back,"  he  roared. 


190  THE  FOG 

"I  ain't  so  sure  about  that." 

"You  mean  you'll  dictate  to  me  how  to  run  my  own  busi 
ness  ?" 

"No,  but  I  reckon  we  got  something  to  say  about  who'll 
fill  our  jobs." 

"I'll  hire  other  people  to  take  your  places !" 

"Why  ain't  you  hired  'em  already  ?" 

"Because  I  wanted  to  be  fair  and  square " 

"Oh,  hell !  You  ain't  been  able  to  get  nobody  to  take  our 
places !  And  you  won't  be  able  to  get  nobody  so  long's  Nat 
stays  away.  We're  seein'  to  that." 

"You  mean  you'll  intimidate  any  persons  I  may  hire  in 
your  places  ?" 

"We'll  knock  the  blocks  off  any  one  who  takes  a  job 
here  while  we're  out.  Yes !" 

"You  get  out  of  my  office !" 

"Surest  thing  you  know !" 

Johnathan  held  out  for  nine  days. 

"I'm  too  nervously  constituted  to  handle  such  cheap  hu 
manity  as  factory  help,"  he  explained  stiffly  to  Nathan  the 
evening  of  the  ninth  day.  "I'm  not  giving  in,  understand,  or 
admitting  you're  anything  but  a  bumptious,  swelled-headed 
boy.  But  I  want  you  to  go  back  upstairs  and  get  those 
orders  off  —  somehow!  It's  only  because  I  haven't  the 
patience  and  time  to  give  to  the  manufacturing  end  that  I'm 
temporarily  sacrificing  my  principles " 

"The  piece  rate  stands,  Pa  ?" 

"For  the  present,  yes !  When  I've  had  time  to  study  into 
it,  we'll  go  into  conference  over  it." 

"All  right  —  if  you'll  promise  to  keep  hands  off,  I'll  try 
to  get  the  wheels  turning  once  more.  But,  Pa !" 

"Well?" 

"I'm  getting  kind  of  sick  working  here  for  next  to  noth 
ing.  I  want  to  go  down  on  the  books  for  twenty  dollars  a 
week." 

"Twenty  dol " 

Johnathan  nearly  fell  on  his  forehead. 

"Twenty  dollars,  yeah!" 

"Not  a  measly  penny !  You've  having  two  whole  dollars 
a  week  now  to  squander " 

"I'm  filling  a  superintendent's  job  here  that  couldn't  be 
filled  by  any  one  else  short  of  thirty.  I'll  pay  board  at 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  191 

home.  But  I  want  what  I'm  worth  and  I'm  not  a  bit  un 
reasonable  to  ask  it." 

They  compromised  on  twelve  dollars. 

The  box-shop  "help"  trooped  back  exultantly.  Nat  knew 
how  to  handle  human  nature.  The  peak  of  production  was 
regained  in  a  single  afternoon. 

Outside,  the  labor  differences  at  the  Forge  plant  were 
colloquially  known  as  "the  box-shop  strike."  But  Johna- 
than  would  have  had  an  arm  torn  out  before  he  would  have 
admitted  any  strike.  His  boy  had  simply  "poisoned  the 
minds"  of  the  help  against  his  own  father  and  they  had 
refused  to  work. 

"I've  got  an  awful  problem  on  my  hands,  Doctor  Dodd," 
he  told  the  pastor  of  the  Methodist  church  the  following 
Thursday  evening.  "And  where  it's  going  to  end,  the  Father 
only  knows.  My  son's  behavior  is  graying  my  hair.  Think 
of  him  having  no  more  filial  loyalty  than  engineering  a 
walk-out  of  my  employees  and  keeping  them  out  until  I  give 
him  a  raise  in  his  wages  of  six  hundred  per  cent!" 

"God  will  humble  him,"  the  kindly  old  man  solaced. 
"The  sympathy  of  the  community  is  with  you,  Brother 
Forge!" 

ill 

And  now  the  long-dreaded,  the  sickening  thing,  had  hap 
pened.  All  the  father's  care  and  worry  and  training  had 
gone  for  naught.  Nathan  had  taken  up  with  a  girl ! 

Johnathan  refused  to  believe  it.  It  was  absolutely  impos 
sible,  after  all  his  father  had  said  to  him,  and  warned  him, 
and  preached  to  him,  and  threatened.  The  boy  simply 
couldn't  be  such  a  deceiver,  such  a  double-dealer,  such  an 
ingrate  —  such  a  sneak! 

And  yet  rumors  persisted.  People  had  actually  seen 
Nathan  with  the  girl ;  swore  they  had  seen  him ! 

True,  boy  and  girl  had  been  doing  nothing  exceptionally 
amiss,  except  strolling  along  unfrequented  by-paths  looking 
rather  sheepish  and  irresponsible,  and  acting  mutually  in 
fatuated.  Still,  Nathan  was  deliberately  disobeying  his 
father ;  he  was  "carrying  on"  behind  his  father's  back.  Sup 
pose  the  hussy  —  she  must  be  a  hussy  —  intrigued  the  boy 
into  premature  matrimony !  God  in  heaven !  —  Suppose  he 


192  THE  FOG 

had  to  marry  her!  Johnathan  went  icy  at  the  horror  of  it. 
Better  the  boy  lay  dead  in  his  coffin.  Somehow  he  must  be 
saved  from  his  folly.  Yet  such  was  his  precocity  and  inde 
pendence  that  it  must  be  done  in  a  manner  not  to  drive  him 
into  the  girl's  arms  or  make  him  run  away  and  therefore 
cause  another  loss  of  his  services  at  the  box  shop.  Yes,  in 
God's  name,  what  was  the  pitiable,  harassed  father  to  do? 
He  prayed  much  over  it.  He  lost  sleep.  His  face  grew 
drawn,  and  gray  appeared  in  fine  strands  at  his  temples. 

Then  one  Sunday  afternoon  in  April  Johnathan  came 
home  from  a  few  hours'  work  on  his  books  to  find  the  gas 
lighted  in  the  front  parlor  and  some  one  playing  on  the 
cottage  organ. 

The  father  purposely  went  around  to  the  rear  door.  His 
wife  was  preparing  supper  in  the  kitchen. 

"Who's  in  the  parlor?"  he  demanded  hotly. 

"Only  Edith  and  a  friend  of  hers  —  and  Nathan." 

"A  friend  of  Edith's  — a  girl?" 

"Yes!  I  didn't  think  there  was  any  harm  letting  them 
play  on  the  organ." 

"Who  is  she  —  ttiz  girl?" 

"Her  name's  Gardner.  She's  visiting  the  Cuttners.  She 
sang  in  the  choir  last  Sunday." 

"Anna !  Answer  me,  quick !  Is  it  the  girl  Nat's  been  seen 
publicly  on  the  streets  with?" 

"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  so!  What  if  it  is?  There's  no 
crime  in  Nat  being  seen  walking  the  streets  with  a  girl,  that 
I  know  of.  Nat's  got  to  have  his  girl  friends  some  time." 

"But  my  God,  woman!  Suppose  she  compromises  the 
innocent,  unsuspecting  boy !  Suppose " 

"Compromises  him  ?" 

"Suppose  the  boy  loses  his  head  and  has  to  marry  her! 
I'll  see  him  dead  before  I'll  see  him  make  hamburg  of  his 
life  as  marriage  made  hamburg  of  mine!" 

"You'll  only  make  it  worse  by  opposing  him !  Do  have  a 
little  sense !"  The  wife  was  too  calloused  to  appreciate  the 
insult  to  herself. 

"I  know !  That's  the  hard  part.  What  can  I  do  ?  I  feel 
so  helpless  and  weak  and  incompetent." 

"Why  go  to  all  this  fuss?  Why  do  anything  at  all 
about  it?  You're  an  awful  lot  of  trouble  to  yourself  at 
times,  John  Forge!  Let  the  whole  thing  work  itself  out. 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  193 

If  you  don't  attach  any  importance  to  it,  neither  will 
Nathan." 

"But  he's  such  a  sickly,  sentimental  young  fool !  I  can't 
trust  him  !  I  can't  trust  him,  I  say !" 

Nevertheless,  intent  on  seeing  what  manner  of  Circe  was 
ruining  his  son's  life,  Johnathan  shed  hat  and  coat  and 
headed  grimly  for  the  parlor. 

Hands  in  pockets,  face  glowering,  Johnathan  stood  be 
tween  the  portieres,  waiting  for  the  music  to  cease.  Nathan 
was  advised  of  his  father's  appearance  by  a  warning  dig 
from  Edith's  elbow.  Miss  Gardner  sensed  something  amiss, 
stopped  playing,  turned  around. 

"This  is  my  father,"  said  Nathan  thickly.  "Pa,  this  is 
Miss  Gardner." 

Carol  arose  and  moved  over  effusively,  one  hand  on  a 
hip,  the  other  outstretched  to  Johnathan. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Forge,"  she  gushed,  "I've  heard  so  much  about 
you  and  so  wanted  to  meet  you " 

Johnathan  did  not  remove  his  hands  from  his  pockets. 
He  addressed  himself  to  his  daughter. 

"Edith,  your  mother  wants  you !  Nathan,  you  and  I  have 
business  to  discuss.  Miss  Gardner  will  excuse  us." 

Edith's  face  flamed  scarlet. 

"But,  dad,  I've  asked  Miss  Gardner  to  stay  to  sup 
per " 

"I'm  sorry !  We've  got  other  company  to  supper.  Miss 
Gardner  will  excuse  us  from  supper  too." 

At  the  coarse  insult,  the  righteously  angered  Gardner  girl 
threw  her  chin  in  the  air. 

"I'm  sorry  I'm  intruding,"  she  said.    "I'll  be  going." 

"Carol !  I "  Nathan's  face  was  piteous  with  the  hu 
miliation  of  it. 

"Nathaniel !"  The  father's  voice  was  ominous.  "As  soon 
as  Miss  Gardner's  gone,  come  to  the  kitchen.  I've  pressing 
business  to  discuss  with  you  !" 

The  Gardner  girl  departed  in  high  pique.  The  boy's  face 
wore  an  unhealthy  look  as  he  came  into  the  kitchen.  Edith 
was  already  sobbing  on  her  mother's  sharp  shoulder.  John 
athan  closed  the  door  and  spoke  first. 


THE 


IV 

"You  dared,"  he  cried  hoarsely,  "to  bring  her  right  here 
into  this  house !  You  dared !" 

"Well,"  demanded  the  son  desperately,  "what  do  you 
want  me  to  do  ?  Sneak  up  some  back  alley  with  her  ?" 

The  apparent  impudence  of  the  question  was  so  flagrant 
that  Johnathan's  temper  exploded  with  a  bang.  Like  light 
ning  he  ripped  a  hand  from  his  pocket  and  struck  Nathan 
in  the  head,  an  unexpected  blow  so  fierce  and  hard  it 
knocked  the  boy  sprawling  over  a  clothes  basket. 

"Pa !  —  I " 

"Shut  up !  Not  a  word  out  of  you !  There  may  be  mur 
der  done  in  this  house  to-night !  You're  not  too  big  yet  for 
me  to  thrash,  even  if  you  can  line  the  help  up  against  me 
in  my  own  factory." 

Despite  his  white-hot  rebellion  Nathan  saw  a  facial  ex 
pression  that  made  him  fear  his  father.  It  cowed  him. 
Beside,  at  heart  he  was  still  much  of  a  boy  and  the  habit 
of  obedience  was  strong  in  him. 

"Now,"  declared  Johnathan,  "you're  going  tc  listen  to 
me.  Edith!  Anna!  Go  out!  This  is  my  affair  and  Na 
than's  —  alone !" 

The  terrified  women  withdrew.  Father  and  son  faced 
one  another  beneath  that  ghastly  white  light  from  the  burner 
sticking  out  from  the  wall. 

"You've  been  going  with  that  girl  —  unbeknown  to  me  — 
you've  been  seen  with  her !" 

Johnathan  began  moving  back  the  chairs  dramatically. 

"All  right!    Suppose  I  have !    What  of  it?" 

"Then  you  —  you  —  admit  it !" 

"Yes.    I  admit  it!" 

"Unbeknown  to  me  —  against  all  I've  told  you  —  you've 
gone  with  her  and  now  you  admit  it !" 

"Do  you  want  me  to  say  I  haven't  ?  Do  you  want  me  to 
lie  to  you  ?" 

"I  want  you  to  keep  your  mouth  shut !  Don't  speak  un 
less  you're  spoken  to !" 

"But  you  did  speak  to  me,  didn't  you  ?" 

Johnathan  walked  over  deadly  close. 

"Nathan,"  he  said  gutturally,  "you're  my  son  —  and  mur- 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  195 

der  is  punishable  by  hanging.  But  I  swear  if  you  give  me 
any  more  of  your  lip,  I'm  going  to  send  you  to  the  under 
taker  and  I'm  going  to  do  it  to-night!" 

The  boy  backed  away  from  his  father  against  the  wall,  as 
far  as  he  could  retreat.  He  did  not  answer.  He  waited. 

"Six  or  eight  years  ago,"  went  on  Johnathan,  when  he 
saw  he  had  browbeaten  his  boy  into  silence,  "six  or  eight 
years  ago  I  told  you  you  were  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
girls !  Not  until  you  were  old  enough  to  know  your  own 
mind,  became  of  age  and  reached  years  of  discretion.  You 
understood  me  plainly  enough  then,  didn't  you?  What? 
You  may  answer !  What  ?" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"And  all  down  the  years  you've  understood  I  insisted  on 
obedience,  didn't  you  —  right  down  until  to-night  ?" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"But  regardless  of  the  fact  that  you  knew  my  wishes  and 
preferences  in  the  matter  perfectly,  regardless  of  my  warn 
ings,  my  whippings,  my  admonitions  —  just  like  you  did  that 
picnic  day  with  the  Gridley  girl  —  you've  deliberately  dis 
obeyed  me,  haven't  you?  You  may  answer  me  that  too! 
What?" 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"Then  what's  the  answer  ?  What  is  it  you  deserve  —  de 
serve  terribly?" 

"Nothing,  sir!" 

"What?" 

"I  said  'Nothing' !" 

"Nothing!" 

"Precisely!  Nothing!  You  can't  lay  down  a  law  that 
runs  contrary  to  human  nature  and  expect  obedience." 

"Nathan  —  I'm  —  going  —  to  —  kill  you!" 

The  boy  never  batted  an  eyelid. 

"No,  father,  you're  not  going  to  kill  me.  And  when  you 
go  talking  so,  I've  cause  to  believe  you're  not  quite  sane." 

It  was  the  boy's  utter  calm  and  perfect  poise  in  a  crucial 
situation,  more  than  the  girl  question  now,  which  was  mak 
ing  Johnathan  a  man  obsessed.  He  wanted  Nathan  to 
cringe  and  be  afraid.  Nathan  was  driven  back  against  the 
wall  but  he  did  not  cringe.  Neither  was  he  afraid.  For  the 
son  had  at  last  looked  into  his  father's  weak,  inflamed  eyes 
and  realized  that  he  —  the  son  —  was  the  better  man. 


196  THE  FOG 

Johnathan's  lips  moved  ghastly  before  his  voice  would 
come. 

"So  I'm  crazy,  am  I?  And  if  I  choose  to  murder  you, 
what  would  you  do  ?" 

"I  won't  hit  you,  father.  But  no  one  could  criticize  me 
for  defending  myself  when  any  one,  even  my  own  father, 
announces  he's  going  to  murder  me." 

"You'll  defend  yourself?    How?" 

"That  remains  to  be  seen." 

"God  Almighty " 

"It  strikes  me,  father  —  and  this  is  as  good  a  time  to  say 
it  as  any  —  it  strikes  me  that  there's  altogether  too  much 
dragging  of  God  into  our  family  affairs,  and  mouthing  His 
name  over  and  over  is  little  short  of  blasphemy.  Let's  leave 
God  out  of  this  and  settle  it  between  ourselves." 

On  the  son's  face  was  slight  contempt.  Johnathan  moved 
deadly  close.  Forked  lights  were  dancing  in  his  eyes. 

"I  demand  respect  and  obedience,"  began  Johnathan  in  a 
cracked,  unnatural  voice. 

"Respect  isn't  something  that  one  person  can  demand  of 
another,  father.  It's  something  we  earn  by  the  way  we 
conduct  ourselves,  day  by  day " 

Nathan  never  finished  his  sentence.  Johnathan  aimed  a 
blow  for  his  son's  jaw  which,  landed,  would  have  split 
open  the  lad's  face.  But  this  time  Nathan  saw  the  blow 
coming.  And 

The  step  from  terrible  tragedy  to  divine  comedy  is  oft 
but  the  space  of  a  hair.  Johnathan  struck  for  his  son's 
jaw.  But  when  his  fist  reached  his  son's  jaw,  his  son's  jaw 
wasn't  there.  It  had  moved.  With  a  boxer's  nicety  of 
perception  for  distance,  Nathan  had  whipped  his  head  to  the 
left. 

The  father's  fist  went  through  plaster  and  lath  halfway  in 
to  the  elbow. 

Anna  Forge  heard  the  dull  smash  and  Johnathan's  bellow 
of  agony.  She  burst  into  the  kitchen.  She  beheld  her  hus 
band  for  an  instant  with  his  hand  and  arm  caught  in  a 
ragged  aperture  in  the  plaster.  Off  to  one  side  Nathan 
stood  with  a  tired,  amused  smile  around  his  mouth. 

But  there  was  no  amusement  in  the  incident  for  Johna 
than.  He  had  broken  two  small  bones  in  his  right  hand. 
And  all  further  attempts  at  parental  chastisement  were  ad- 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  197 

journed  for  that  night  in  the  greater  calamity  of  broken 
bones. 

"You  go  to  bed!"  he  ordered  his  son  hoarsely.  "We'll 
finish  this  in  the  morning."  The  father's  face  had  been 
ashen  with  anger.  Now  it  was  white  with  agony,  and  his 
eyes  were  streaming  tears. 

Nathan  pitied  his  father.  But  he  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  went  from  the  room.  The  pain  from  the  broken 
knuckles  was  so  great  that  Johnathan  soon  sobbed  openly. 
Still,  one  could  hardly  expect  the  boy  to  leave  his  face 
around  to  intercept  any  such  blow  as  Johnathan  had  pur 
posed. 


It  was  after  ten  o'clock  when  Nathan  heard  his  father 
come  in  from  the  doctor's.  The  boy  had  gone  to  his  room 
to  throw  himself,  fully  dressed,  upon  his  bed.  He  lay  star 
ing  out  through  opened  windows  at  the  warm  spring  stars. 
Somewhere  down  to  the  south  of  town  the  frogs  were  piping 
faintly.  Wonderful  scents  of  awakening  shrubs  and  sod 
wafted  in  at  the  window.  The  night  was  hushed,  mystic. 
He  was  eighteen  and  in  love. 

He  waited  until  the  snarling  voices  of  father  and  mother 
had  become  double-muffled  by  the  closed  door  of  their  bed 
room.  He  heard  both  father  and  mother  retire.  The  hour 
slipped  on  into  deeper  night  and  utter  nerve  exhaustion 
brought  sleep  to  his  parents.  Then  he  arose  and  tiptoed 
softly  across  the  hall. 

"Edie,"  he  whispered,  "I'm  going  out." 

Edith  sat  up  in  bed. 

"Where  are  you  going,  at  this  time  of  night  ?" 

"Down  to  see  Carol.  I've  got  to  square  myself  for  the 
raw  deal  she  got  to-night." 

"How  you  going  to  get  out  ?" 

"Over  the  woodshed  roof.  And  listen !  If  Pa  or  Ma  get 
wise,  hang  something  white  in  your  window,  so  I  won't  be 
climbing  into  a  trap.  It'd  be  just  like  him  to  hit  me  a  crack 
from  the  dark  before  I  could  defend  myself." 

"I'll  do  it  if  to-morrow  night  you'll  keep  watch  while  I 
sneak  out  1" 

"Why  do  you  want  to  sneak  out  ?" 


/98  THE  FOG 

"To  meet  Tad  MacHenry.  He's  just  wild  about  me. 
You  oughta  hear  him.  If  Pa  won't  lemme  have  him  into 
the  house  or  even  speak  to  a  feller  during  the  day,  why  I'll 
do  it  at  night,  that's  all." 

"But,  Edie  —  it's  a  little  different  —  for  a  fellow  to  go  out 
at  night  —  than  for  a  girl  to  —  I " 

"Huh!  Think  you're  smart,  don't  you?  Think  you've 
thought  up  a  swell  way  to  see  Carrie,  skinnin'  out  over  the 
woodshed  room.  Well,  just  for  that,  I'll  have  you  know  that 
Mr.  Turner,  the  hardware  man,  made  a  duplicate  of  the 
back-door  key  most  two  months  ago.  I  been  seein'  Tad 
two  or  three  times  a  week  since  February,  already." 

The  flabbergasted  brother  managed  to  ask : 

"Then  why  do  you  want  me  to  let  you  out  to-morrow 
night " 

"It's  my  nerves,  skinnin'  back  into  a  dark  house  and 
thinkin'  I  was  walkin'  into  Pa  who'd  missed  me  and  was  up 
waitin'  for  me.  Besides,  I  got  a  good  scare  one  morning 
when  I  almost  run  into  old  Braithwaite,  the  milkman." 

"We'll  talk  about  that  to-morrow,  Edie.  You're  taking 
pretty  tall  chances  for  a  girl  —  going  out  all  night  with  a 
fellow  like  Tad.  He's  a  pretty  smooth  pool  player  and  with 
girls " 

"Oh,  I  guess  I  can  take  care  of  myself  —  and  no  thanks 
to  Pa  and  Ma,  either.  Anyhow,  you  don't  need  to  sneak  out 
over  the  woodshed  roof.  You  can  use  my  key.  But  for 
the  Lord's  sake,  don't  go  sprawlin'  over  anything  in  the 
kitchen  or  the  jig's  up." 

VI 

Carol  and  Nathan  had  reached  that  stage  of  intimacy 
where  a  private  whistle  had  been  evolved  in  case  Nathan 
elected  to  call  Carol  without  advising  her  grandpar 
ents. 

Nathan  approached  the  Cuttner  house  now  through  silent, 
deserted  streets.  An  arc  light  on  the  distant  corner  of 
Walnut  and  Pearl  disclosed  the  length  of  the  Cuttner  side 
piazza  ghostily.  Nathan  dodged  into  the  shadow  of  a  big 
maple  before  the  house  and  cautiously  gave  the  whistle. 

Twice,  three  times  he  repeated  it.  No  signs  of  life  stirred 
within.  Was  the  girl  sleeping  too  soundly  to  hear?  Or  was 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  199 

she  too  incensed  over  the  father's  conduct  to  want  any  more 
of  the  son? 

As  Nat  stood  waiting,  wondering,  hoping  wistfully,  with 
a  sudden  thump  of  his  heart  he  saw  the  Cuttner  front  door 
give  way  and  a  figure  slip  through.  This  figure  in  silhouette 
turned  and  remained  for  a  moment  with  face  close  to  the 
door,  latching  it  slowly  and  in  perfect  quiet.  Then  it  tip 
toed  stealthily  across  the  veranda,  down  the  steps  and  Carol 
came  into  his  arms.  She  had  arisen  from  bed,  dressed 
hastily  and  by  no  means  completely,  thrown  up  her  hair 
in  a^quick  knot  at  her  neck  and  made  the  red  cloak  cover 
the  exigencies  of  a  hasty  toilet.  She  giggled  mawkishly  as 
she  met  him.  She  too  assayed  this  tryst  on  pique,  against 
her  grandfather.  Old  Archibald  had  declared  "she'd  got 
to  cut  out  havin'  fellers  traipsin'  into  the  house  every  night 
and  twice  a  day  on  Sundays,  that  Forge  yelp  in  particular. 
He  didn't  have  any  too  good  a  reputation  about  town  on 
account  of  writing  dirty-minded  poetry."  But  Carol,  having 
heard  Nathan's  side  of  the  story,  was  inclined  to  give  the 
lad  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  Besides,  it  was  spring  and 
"she  couldn't  sleep  a  wink,  anyhow."  A  walk  in  the  night 
was  very  acceptable.  Love  laughed  at  locksmiths,  didn't 
it?  And  think  how  romantic  it  was,  just  like  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  Taking  care  that  no  neighbors  saw  them,  they  went 
down  Pearl  Street  hill,  out  along  Adams  Street,  past  the 
Catholic  Cemetery  and  the  pumping  station,  into  world-old, 
moist,  spring  country. 

It  was  one  of  those  warm,  sensuous  nights  which  often 
visit  New  England  in  early  April,  with  the  snow  almost 
gone  excepting  in  far  corners  of  sunless  woods,  with  the 
ground  drying  and  the  incense  of  budding  leaves  and  flowers 
surfeiting  the  shrine  of  Youth  in  the  vast  out-of-doors. 
The  stars  hung  large  and  mellow  and  close.  In  another 
hour  a  half-made  moon  would  find  its  way  through  the 
ephemeral  stratas  of  upper  haze.  It  would  stay  clear  and 
fine  until  early  morning. 

It  matters  not  where  they  walked;  all  the  spring  world 
through  which  they  moved  was  wrapped  into  a  soft,  sweet 
dream.  There  were  no  distances.  Distances  were  blurred, 
dissolved  in  fantasies  of  mauve  and  purple  nothingness. 
Poor,  distorted,  twisted,  perverted  young  love  had  mocked 
at  locksmiths,  indeed.  But  the  singing,  sighing  spring  night 


200  THE  FOG 

threw  a  mantle  of  sweet  solitude  over  those  distortions  and 
perversions.  The  boy  and  the  girl  were  alone,  off  under  a 
starlit  sky  in  the  great  out-of-doors.  And  earth  was  a 
garden  spread  in  silver  and  bound  around  with  impalpable 
walls  of  Heart's  Desire. 

Nathan  recounted  what  had  ensued  in  his  home  following 
Carol's  departure.  The  girl  was  already  acquainted  with 
the  sordid  injustices  done  the  boy. 

"Served  him  right !"  she  snapped  pertly.  "Personally  I 
think  your  father's  a  little  bit  'off' !" 

"Let's  forget  it,"  responded  Nathan.  "Let's  just  talk 
about  ourselves."  And  he  breathed  a  happy  sigh.  Parents 
and  guardians  were  sleeping,  like  all  the  world  about  them. 
The  night  and  its  hours  belonged  to  themselves. 

"Carrie,"  said  the  boy  —  thickly,  softly  —  as  they  moved 
slowly  through  infinite  reaches  of  happiness,  deep-toned, 
voluptuous  with  the  spell  of  springtime,  "I  want  to  tell  you 
something." 

"Yes,  Natie!" 

The  boy's  arm  was  about  her  warm,  yielding,  corsetless 
waist.  Instinctively  it  tightened. 

"Carrie  —  dear !     I  —  love  you ! !" 

He  had  never  said  it  in  plain  words  before.  His  heart 
leaped  with  the  admission.  The  hour,  the  vastness  of  their 
freedom,  acted  upon  his  self-conscious  ego  as  an  opiate. 
He  was  the  eternal  lover. 

The  girl  hung  her  head.  She  pressed  her  arm  against 
the  hand  which  held  her  tightly.  Laughing  nervously,  she 
returned : 

"I  love  you  too,  Natie,  or  I  wouldn't  be  here,  would  I? 
No  girl  would  trust  herself  out  with  a  fellow  so,  unless  she 
loved  him  —  very  much.  Isn't  that  right?" 

"You  know  you  can  trust  me,  dear." 

"I  don't  know  as  I'm  thinking  very  much  about  it,  Natie. 
There's  a  point  where  a  girl  doesn't  care,  you  know,  when 
she  loves  a  fellow  very  much." 

They  covered  a  quarter  mile  in  silence. 

Far  out  beyond  the  Cogswell  place  was  an  abandoned  pile 
of  weather-grayed  lumber.  It  was  half  hidden  under  bram 
bles  and  wild  grape.  Nat  and  the  girl  reached  this  pile. 
Behind  it  the  Cogswell  wood  lot  reared  like  an  enchanted 
forest,  Stygian  dark,  peri  haunted.  Across  the  road,  a 


VALLEYS  OF  AVALON  201 

pasture  of  sumach  and  blueberry  fell  away  to  the  lower 
shores  of  a  choked  and  stagnant  pond.  The  hour  was  too 
late  for  the  frog  chorus  to  pipe  down  in  this  bogland.  But 
occasionally  up  across  the  pasture  came  a  single  plaintive 
note  or  the  dull,  lugubrious  "gut-a-chunk"  of  a  philosophic 
bullfrog.  Once  very  far  away  they  heard  a  whippoorwill. 

They  sat  down  on  this  pile  of  lumber,  its  weather-spiced 
fiber  even  more  fragrant  than  the  shrubs  and  sod  around 
them.  Darkness  hid  scarlet  faces.  Nathan  took  the  girl  on 
his  lap.  Their  lips  met. 

Carol  resigned  herself  with  a  happy  quiver.  She  lay  in 
his  powerful  young  arms  like  a  tired  child  and  blinked  at 
him  owlishly  in  the  weird  moonlight. 

"I  think,  Natie,"  she  whispered,  "I  think  —  I  love  you 
more  —  than  I  ever  dreamed  I  could  love  any  man  —  even 
back  in  A-higher." 

Her  weight  began  to  numb  the  boy's  limbs.  Yet  he  could 
not  disturb  her ;  she  was  a  wonderful  burden. 

Hairpins  bothered  where  her  head  rested  against  his 
shoulder.  With  her  left  hand  she  pulled  them  out.  She 
shook  her  riotous  chestnut  tresses  free  and  they  fell  about 
her  oval  face  like  the  bacchanal  crown  of  a  Sybarite.  The 
lad  bent  his  head  and  buried  his  lips  in  them. 

She  was  his  —  his !  Such  a  night  would  never  come  again 
—  could  never  come  again  —  because  this  was  the  first.  No 
thrust-and-parry,  drooling  calf-talk ;  no  bids  for  sex-interest 
here. 

Youth,  nature  and  night  were  stripped  to  their  framework. 
For  this  were  the  worlds  made  and  the  constellations  hung 
infinitely.  For  such  was  a  soul  given  a  maid  and  a  man. 
For  this  had  a  cricket  sung  beneath  these  old  gray  boards 
for  a  hundred  thousand  years. 

Again  the  boy's  lips  found  the  girl's.  Her  left  arm  crept 
up  his  right  shoulder  and  around  his  neck.  Their  lips  clung 
together. 

"Oh,  Natie !"  she  whispered.    She  had  no  strength. 

"Let's  stroll  back  toward  home,"  the  boy  suggested 
thickly. 

The  old  clock  in  the  tower  of  the  Universalist  Church  was 
striking  three  when  they  finally  reached  the  Cuttner  gate. 
In  another  hour  the  first  streaks  of  warm  dawn  would  bring 
the  summit  of  Haystack  Mountain  into  sharper  silhouette. 


202  THE  FOG 

"Just  once  more,  dear  boy,"  the  girl  whispered  as  she 
stood  close  before  him  in  the  hush  of  somnambulistic 
morning. 

Arms  interlocked,  once  more  Nathan  kissed  her. 

She  bade  him  good-by  in  a  whisper.  She  tiptoed  up  and 
on  to  the  veranda.  The  door  yielded.  The  Cuttner  house 
hold  still  slept.  She  waved  him  a  comradely  farewell  and 
slipped  noiselessly  inside. 

Nathan  hurried  through  the  deserted  town  and  into 
Spring  Street.  There  was  no  white  signal  in  Edith's  win 
dow.  The  Forge  house  was  weirdly  quiet. 

From  the  other  side  the  partition  he  could  hear  his 
father's  lumberous  snoring,  when  he  gained  his  bedroom. 
He  undressed  and  slipped  into  an  unmade  bed  as  a  trillion 
birds  were  beginning  to  awaken  and  hold  tuneful  conversa 
tion  in  a  hundred  thousand  tree  tops. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ANOTHER   CASE 


June  had  come  again.  A  class  of  eighteen  girls,  graduat 
ing  from  The  Elms,  were  holding  Commencement  on  the 
twenty-fifth. 

Commencement  Week  was  Mardi  Grass  for  Mount  Hadley 
in  a  refined,  dignified,  academic  way.  While  The  Elms  was 
chiefly  a  college-preparatory  school,  many  of  its  graduates 
were  going  abroad,  becoming  debutantes,  receiving  no  fur 
ther  schooling.  So  Commencement  Week  and  especially 
Commencement  Night  was  a  gala  time.  The  little  tree- 
bowered,  hilltop  town  overflowed  with  parents,  relatives  and 
guests.  Music,  lights,  laughter  and  love  were  as  extrava 
gantly  squandered  as  the  wealth  of  Nature  poured  out  for 
the  sensual  gratification  of  insatiable  summer. 

And  the  Door  of  Life  opened  large  on  the  world. 

Madelaine  Theddon  was  among  those  graduating  from 
The  Elms  with  that  Commencement.  She  had  taken  a 
course  preparing  her  for  college.  What  college  and  what 
lifework  was  coming  after  had  not  been  decided.  She  hoped 
to  reach  a  decision  before  September. 

The  afternoon  of  June  24th,  strange  to  relate,  found 
Madelaine  aboard  a  suburban  trolley,  headed  for  Spring 
field.  Her  face  wore  an  expression  of  vague  worry.  In 
her  calm  eyes  was  dread.  This  while  merrymaking  at  Mount 
Hadley  was  approaching  its  peak  and  no  one  was  more 
urgently  sought  after  than  the  girl  /vhose  school  nickname 
had  been  "Old  Mother  Hubbard." 

A  letter  had  been  responsible.  It  had  been  scrawled  upon 
several  sheets  of  expensive  note  paper  bearing  the  crest  of  a 
Springfield  hotel.  It  was  a  woman's  penmanship ;  Made 
laine  would  have  recognized  to  whom  it  belonged  had  no 
name  been  appended.  But  a  name  had  been  appended  — 


204  THE  FOG 

Bernice  Gridley's  name  —  and  there  was  no  ignoring  the 
letter's  appeal. 

Reaching  Springfield,  Madelaine  hurried  to  the  hotel 
whither  Bernice  had  preceded  her  by  two  days.  It  was  then 
about  six-thirty  in  the  evening  and  a  warm  summer  rain  was 
shining  on  city  walks  and  pavements,  reflecting  the  first 
lamps  of  evening  nebulously.  Madelaine  called  Bernie  in 
her  room,  announcing  her  arrival.  Then  she  went  upstairs. 
Bernie  admitted  her.  The  room  was  unlighted. 

Bernice  threw  her  arms  around  Madelaine  when  the  door 
had  closed,  despite  the  latter's  wet  silken  gossamer,  before 
Madelaine  had  even  found  a  place  for  her  dripping  um 
brella. 

"I'm  so  glad  you've  come!  You're  an  old  dear,"  choked 
Bernie  huskily. 

Despite  the  rain  clouds  and  spring  mist  smothering  the 
city,  there  was  yet  light  enough  in  the  lavish  apartment  for 
Madelaine  to  see  that  Bernie  was  in  trouble,  terrible  trouble. 
"Old  Mother  Hubbard"  stood  her  umbrella  in  the  bath  and 
threw  her  gossamer  over  the  nickel-work  of  the  shower. 
She  cast  aside  the  mannish  felt  hat  she  had  worn  because  of 
the  wet  and  returned  to  where  Bernie  had  dropped  into  a 
chair  by  the  window.  Madelaine  took  the  rocker  opposite, 
their  knees  almost  touching. 

"What  is  it,  dear  —  a  man  ?" 

"Yes,"  whispered  Bernie,  her  voice  poignant. 

"Just  how  bad ?" 

"Mother's  due  to  arrive  in  the  morning,  for  Commence 
ment.  I  can't  see  her,  Madge.  I  can't  see  her  again,  ever !" 

Bernie  fumbled  for  her  handkerchief.  She  had  braided 
her  tawny  hair  in  a  single  heavy  cable ;  it  fell  down  across 
her  left  shoulder  and  breast.  She  wore  a  Japanese  kimono, 
incongruously  flowered,  with  obi  girdle.  At  nineteen  the 
Dresden  Doll  was  a  Dresden  Doll  no  longer.  She  had  be 
come  a  big-bodied  girl  with  prominent,  bony  features,  a 
small,  narrow  forehead,  wide  cheek  bones,  prominent  nose 
and  weak,  sensuous  mouth.  The  saving  feature  of  her 
countenance  was  a  deep  dimple  in  her  chin.  It  was  a  coy, 
devilish  dimple  and  had  wrought  much  damage.  A  type 
of  Mona  Lisa  face,  Bernie's  —  without  the  Mona  Lisa 
humor. 

Madelaine  sat  motionless,  her  hands  relaxed  along  the 


ANOTHER  CASE  205 

chair  arms.  She  was  very  calm,  very  grave.  Only  tender 
compassion  lay  upon  her  cameo  features  now. 

"How  did  it  happen,  dear?"  she  asked.  "Do  you  want 
to  tell  me  that  ?" 

"No !  I  want  you  to  tell  me  —  what  I  ought  to  do  — 
what's  ahead  for  me.  Oh,  Madge!  Madge!  I'm  so  scared 
I  want  to  die !" 

The  Gridley  girl  fell  into  a  paroxysm  of  trembling,  such 
an  ague  that  Madelaine  leaned  forward  and  took  her  hands. 
Bernice  was  ill,  far  worse  than  Madelaine  had  expected. 
Though  Bernice  made  the  demand  on  her  as  a  right,  the  girl 
called  "Old  Mother  Hubbard"  was  broad  enough  and  hu 
man  enough  to  make  allowance.  Bernie  was  a  woman 
grown  physically,  perhaps.  Otherwise  she  was  a  little  child, 
alone  in  the  dark,  panic-stricken  in  a  world  of  savage  ig 
norance  and  injustice. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  frightened  about,  Bernie.  Noth 
ing.  Get  it  firmly  into  your  mind  and  hold  it  there.  We  only 
fear  the  things  we  fail  to  understand.  Apparently  that's 
where  you've  made  your  blunder.  You  haven't  understood. 
The  secret  of  solving  any  great  trouble  is  to  keep  calm  and 
poised  about  it.  Remember  there's  no  human  difficulty  but 
what  there's  a  human  solution.  Now,  then,  what  we  want 
to  determine  first  is  the  thing  that's  frightening  you  most. 
Once  cleared  away,  we  can  proceed  to  the  elimination  of 
other  bothersome  things.  Just  what  bothers  you  worse, 
dear  —  physical  fear  or  the  reaction  of  your  predicament 
on  your  family  and  f uture  ?" 

"Oh,  Madge !  You're  so  wonderful.  I'm  sorry  for  all 
the  mean  and  spiteful  things  I  said  about  you !  You're  an 
angel  and  a " 

"Let's  not  talk  about  myself,  dear.  I'm  here  to  talk  about 
you.  If  you've  said  or  done  anything  unfair  about  me  in  the 
past,  it's  because  you  didn't  understand.  So  not  under 
standing,  you  can't  of  course  be  wholly  blamed.  Anyway,  I 
believe  it's  an  obligation  all  of  us  have,  to  give  our  help  so 
long  as  people  are  sent  into  contact  with  us  who  need  and 
deserve  it.  If  there's  any  way  I  can  aid  you,  I'm  here  to 
do  it.  And  I  want  you  to  feel  my  friendship  before  we  gd 
any  further." 

"I  guess  —  I  can't  help  it,"  choked  Bernie. 

Madelaine  softly  pressed  the  two  cold  hands  she  held. 


206  THE  FOG 

"Now  then,  dear,  let's  have  the  story.  What's  frightening 
you  most?" 

"Madge!  I've  got  to  tell  you  how  it  happened.  I  can't 
tell  you  his  name.  I  just  can't!  Don't  ask  me  why  I  can't. 
But  —  I  just  can't " 

"I  know,  dear.  You  love  him.  To  protect  the  man  who 
has  taken  advantage  is  a  feminine  atavism  since  river-drift 
days,  I  suppose.  I  don't  want  to  know  his  name.  And  I 
only  want  to  know  the  story  as  it  helps  to  show  what's 
bothering  you  most." 

"Madge !    It  happened  this  way.    One  night " 

The  rain  stopped  after  a  time.  The  clouds  rolled  away 
toward  the  southeast.  Stars  shone  brightly.  The  roar  of 
the  Springfield  evening  traffic,  the  honk  of  motor  cars,  the 
purring  grind  of  trolleys,  arose  to  the  room  where  Made 
laine  had  lowered  the  upper  sash  of  the  big  window.  When 
Bernice  completed  her  ragged  story,  she  was  leaning  for 
ward,  weeping  intermittently.  Madelaine  was  a  silhouette 
in  the  semi-dark.  She  rocked  slowly. 

"But,  Bernice,"  she  said  at  last,  "why  should  you  do  it? 
I'm  not  rebuking  you,  dear.  I'm  asking  for  information. 
I  can't  understand  it.  Why  didn't  an  intuitive  reserve  and 
decency  prompt  you  to  conserve  yourself?  Why  didn't  the 
very  greatness  of  your  love  urge  you  to  nurture  and  cherish 
those  things  which  lie  at  the  root  of  it  —  not  squander  and 
spatter  and  waste  and  cheapen  them?" 

"I  don't  know,  Madge.  Somehow  I  just  felt  devilish.  I 
wanted  to  do  something  shockingly  wicked.  I  wanted  to  get 
as  far  away  from  all  the  goodness  and  decency  I've  known 
all  my  life  as  I  could.  That's  the  truth,  Madge.  At  the 
moment  I  didn't  care.  I'll  tell  you  more  truth :  I  gloried  in 
it !  Yes,  I  did !  I  was  glad  I  was  wicked  —  until  —  until  I 
saw  I  was  going  to  face  all  the  penalty." 

"I  can't  understand,"  murmured  Madelaine. 

"No,  perhaps  not.  But  you  might  if  you  knew  my 
mother.  Ever  since  I  was  a  tiny  girl,  Madge,  I've  lived  in 
an  atmosphere  of  things  that  were  'strictly  proper.'  Oh, 
how  tired  and  sick  I  grew  of  things  that  were  'strictly 
proper.'  Mother  always  gave  me  to  understand  I  was  dif 
ferent  than  other  children,  I  was  better  quality.  So  I  had 
to  live  up  to  that  better  quality.  It  was  awful  dull  and 
tedious.  At  times  it  maddened  me.  Mother  lay  awake 


ANOTHER  CASE  207 

nights  worrying  about  her  culture  —  and  mine.  After  she'd 
married  dad,  she  made  the  discovery  that  on  her  mother's 
side,  a  few  generations  back,  she'd  descended  from  a 
duchess.  Being  born  in  a  two-room  apartment  over  a  Rut 
land  Quick  Lunch  and  then  discovering  there  was  the  blood 
of  a  duchess  in  her  veins,  she  had  a  horrible  time  with  her 
self,  and  with  dad  too,  forgetting  'Quick  Lunch'  beginnings. 
Dad  was  a  money-maker.  He  never  worried  much  about 
his  culture.  Beside,  I  don't  think  they  were  very  happily 
married.  He  didn't  understand  her.  He  let  her  go  her 
way  as  she  pleased.  Just  paid  the  bills.  So  in  the  second 
generation,  meaning  poor  me,  mother  determined  the  'Quick 
Lunch'  business  should  be  outbred  if  it  cost  her  a  leg.  And 
I  lived  our  royalty  from  Monday  morning  to  Saturday  night, 
double  doses  on  Sunday.  And  when  I  gQt  old  enough  to  see 
how  much  fun  I  was  missing  by  not  being  just  natural  and 
normal,  without  consciously  thinking  about  our  culture 
every  minute,  I  rebelled.  Madge,  dear,  why  is  it  their  cul 
ture  gives  some  people  such  a  horrible,  distressing  time, 
making  them  miserable  and  wooden-like,  instead  of  natural 
and  joyous?" 

Madelaine  was  silent  a  moment  before  answering. 

"I  think,  Bernice,  it  must  be  because  they've  missed  the 
meaning  of  true  culture  entirely.  They  have  a  blind  pride 
groping  for  higher  things.  That's  fine  and  commendable. 
But  they  don't  stop  to  reason  why  that  culture  should  be, 
what  lies  at  the  bottom  of  it,  I  mean.  Speaking  for  myself, 
I've  reasoned  it  that  real  culture  has  its  base  and  foundation 
in  an  inherent  appreciation  of  the  Beautiful.  And  unless 
one  has  an  inherent  taste  and  appreciation  of  the  Beautiful, 
dear,  and  builds  all  things  upon  that,  they're  merely  apes 
and  imitators.  They're  ludicrously  copying  the  behavior 
and  tastes  of  those  who  have.  People  who  do  the  most 
worrying  about  their  culture,  as  you  phrase  it,  are  not  wor 
rying  about  their  own  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  appropriate. 
They're  worrying  because  they  may  not  be  aping  correctly 
some  one  who  has  the  fundamentals  and  is  letting  culture 
take  care  of  itself.  Having  no  fundamentals  of  their  own, 
the  imitators,  I  mean,  merely  a  superficial,  competitive  pride, 
they  fret  their  lives  away.  They  make  themselves  and  all 
those  around  them  miserable  —  acting  a  part  instead  of  liv 
ing  a  part." 


208  THE  FOG 

"Well,"  continued  Bernie,  "mother  crammed  royalty  and 
culture  down  my  throat  so  long  and  hard  that  when  I  got 
outside  I  just  had  to  explode.  I  guess  you're  right,  Madge ; 
I  never  had  it  reasoned  out  for  me  why  I  should  do  this  or 
that.  Mother's  battle-cry  was,  'It  simply  isn't  done  by  the 
Best  People!'  I  got  so  heartily  sick  of  those  Best  People  — 
whoever  they  were  —  that  I  wanted  to  shriek.  This  thing 
wasn't  nice  and  that  thing  wasn't  proper.  The  Best  People 
never  did  exactly  the  things  I  hungered  to  do.  And  every 
thing  was  'shocking!  shocking!'  Life  wasn't  like  that.  I 
saw  it  soon  enough.  And  repressing  all  my  curiosity  and 
impulse  to  get  my  share  of  fun  out  of  it  grew  more  and 
more  unbearable.  I  remember  once  I  went  on  a  picnic.  I 
wandered  off  in  the  woods  with  one  of  the  little  hicks  of 
our  town.  I  wanted  to  be  just  as  bad  as  I  knew  how.  But 
all  my  poor  little  pate  could  conceive  was  kissing  him  and 
letting  him  kiss  me  as  much  as  I  pleased  —  and  taking  off 
shoes  and  stockings  and  paddling  in  a  brook.  I  felt  I  was 
getting  back  at  mother.  Though  why  I  should  get  back  at 
her,  or  what  I  hoped  to  gain  by  it,  I  never  stopped  to  think. 
Mother  never  told  me  anything  about  myself.  She  never 
sat  down  and  reasoned  with  me.  She  never  tried  to  make 
me  understand  what  my  impulses  meant  or  why  I  possessed 
them.  It  seemed  as  if  everything  natural  and  normal  was 
just  shocking,  shocking " 

"And  hasn't  the  reason  for  intuitive  decency  and  normal 
ity  ever  occurred  to  you,  dear  ?" 

"I  never  stop  to  reason  things  out.  I'm  not  like  you, 
Madge !  I  go  more  by  my  feelings." 

Madelaine  toyed  thoughtfully  with  a  tiny  gold  watch 
chain  encircling  her  neck. 

"Sometimes,  dear,"  she  observed,  "when  I  think  how  nar 
row  and  short-sighted  and  unfair  some  parents  seem  to  be, 
I  wonder  the  race  is  as  clean  and  decent  as  it  is." 

"Don't  talk  like  old  Prexy  Anderson  to-night,  Madge. 
It  makes  my  head  ache.  I  don't  want  to  know  the  reason 
for  things.  I  just  want  to  know  the  way  out  of  them." 

Madelaine  shook  her  head  sadly. 

"And  so  that's  how  you  met  with  this  trouble?  You 
wanted  to  spite  your  mother  again." 

"Not  altogether.  It  wasn't  mother  especially  just  then. 
Tt  was  everything  mother  stood  for.  He  flung  at  me,  'Oh, 


ANOTHER  CASE  209 

you're  one  of  those  "nice"  girls,  are  you?'  and  it  made  me 
wild.  I  proposed  to  show  him  I  wasn't  one  of  those  'nice' 
girls  and  the  sky  was  the  limit.  He  couldn't  fling  any  such 
insult  in  my  teeth  as  that.  Then  I  didn't  care  what  hap 
pened." 

"You  don't  love  him?" 

"I  didn't  say  so." 

"Well,  would  you  marry  him?" 

"I  don't  know.  Oh,  Madge,  I  don't  know  anything  — 
where  I  am  —  what  I  want  to  do  —  what  I  ought  to  do  — 
what's  to  become  of  me.  I  guess  my  folks  are  bothering 
most.  Dad's  hard-boiled  in  lots  of  ways.  Yet  all  the  same, 
I  don't  fear  him  half  so  much  as  I  do  mother.  It'll  scan 
dalize  her  so  she's  going  to  make  my  life  a  misery.  And 
not  half  so  much  because  I've  done  any  moral  wrong  as 
because  what  I've  done  isn't  sanctioned  by  the  Best  People. 
Damn  the  Best  People!  Who  are  they?  Where  are  they? 
What  are  they  —  that  they  should  injure  me  so  ?" 

"Calm  yourself,  child.  Then  it's  fright  of  your  mother 
that's  bothering  you  most  ?" 

"I  guess  so.    Yes!" 

"Then  don't  be  frightened  any  more.  Because  when  your 
mother  comes  to  Mount  Hadley  in  the  morning,  I'll  take  it 
upon  myself  to  see  her  and  explain  everything  away  all 
right.  As  for  yourself,  my  foster-mother  is  very  sensible 
about  such  things.  Perhaps  that's  why  I've  come  to  look 
upon  them  so  impersonally  myself.  I'll  go  up  and  have  a  talk 
with  mother.  For  a  few  months  you  can  be  our  guest. 
When  the  crucial  time  comes,  mother  will  arrange  matters. 
We  are  going  abroad  this  summer.  In  so  far  as  any  one, 
even  your  parents,  need  know,  you  are  accompanying  us  as 
our  guest.  My  mother  won't  even  ask  who  you  are,  if  you 
don't  care  for  her  to  know ;  any  name  you  wish  to  go  by  will 
be  perfectly  all  right." 

"And  my  mother  need  never  learn  ?" 

"That  depends  upon  my  talk  with  her  in  the  morning. 
Just  now,  in  so  far  as  Mount  Hadley  is  concerned,  you've 
broken  down  as  a  result  of  the  final  exams,  and  the  excite 
ment  of  Commencement." 

"Oh,  Madge !  Madge !"  Bernice  went  down  suddenly  on 
her  knees  with  her  feverish  head  in  Madelaine's  lap.  She 
covered  Madelaine's  cool,  capable  hands  with  kisses.  Her 


210  THE  FOG 

tears  came  in  such  a  flood  they  dripped  from  her  dimpled 
chin.  "Tell  me,  Madge  —  you  know  everything  —  tell  me 
what's  ahead  for  me.  I  don't  know,  Madge.  I  never  knew. 
Those  things  were  always  'shocking !  shocking !'  " 

In  the  next  half-hour  Madelaine  simplified  the  great  fun 
damentals  of  life  into  words  of  one  syllable.  Bernie  clung 
to  her  convulsively  when  Madelaine  came  to  leave. 

"There's  a  God,"  whispered  the  tanner's  daughter  thickly, 
reverently,  "because  He  made  you,  Madelaine  Theddon !" 

At  ten-thirty  that  same  evening  Madelaine  was  back  in 
Hathaway  Hall,  Mount  Hadley,  perfect  in  an  evening  gown 
of  gold  satin  and  cobweb  lace,  dancing  divinely  with  a  clean- 
cut  young  fellow  from  Boston  "Tech"  who  was  going  to 
Buenos  Aires  in  August  as  an  architect  for  the  Argentine 
Government. 

The  clean-cut  young  fellow  decided  Miss  Theddon  the 
cleverest  girl  he  had  ever  met,  as  well  as  the  most  beautiful. 
She  discussed  architecture  with  him  as  though  she  had 
already  qualified  for  an  architect's  position  herself. 


ii 

The  following  evening  Madelaine  sat  in  her  room  and 
from  her  ivy-bordered  window  looked  down  upon  the  little 
town  she  was  leaving  on  the  morrow.  Behind  her  the  lights 
had  been  extinguished.  Now  and  then  a  trio  of  white  fig 
ures  moved  across  the  lawn  or  the  Common  below,  in  and 
out  of  the  shadows  made  by  the  lordly  elms.  Happy  laugh 
ter  died  on  the  summer  night.  Somewhere  down  the  street 
piano  keys  were  tinkling  and  the  rich  tenor  of  a  man's  voice 
was  softened  by  the  distance. 

Madelaine  was  thinking  of  Bernie's  problem.  Yet  not 
altogether.  She  was  also  thinking  of  her  own.  Life  was 
coming  to  her  now  as  a  responsibility.  She  owed  much  to 
her  mother,  far  more  to  the  world  that  had  been  so  good  to 
her,  and  the  poor,  perplexed,  fog-groping  men  and  women 
—  especially  young  men  and  women  —  in  it.  What  should 
be  her  life  work?  How  should  she  try  to  repay  that  debt 
mounting  with  each  passing  month  and  year  to  overwhelm 
ing  proportion  ? 

Marriage  did  not  seem  her  end  and  aim.    Not  then !    She 


ANOTHER  CASE  211 

had  an  intuition  that  marriage  would  come  afterward,  after 
she  had  paid  the  debt,  or  tried  to  pay  it.  What  then? 

Always  her  well-ordered  brain  came  back  to  Bernie. 
There  must  be  many  Bernies.  Could  she  find  her  niche 
helping  them?  How? 

She  tried  drastic  self -analysis.  Then  she  relaxed  and 
tried  yielding  herself  unreservedly  to  instinct. 

Finally  she  thought  of  Bernie  in  terms  of  immediate  help 
—  guiding  her  through  her  Gethsemane  —  concretely.  The 
function  of  nursing  was  but  a  step  to  conceiving  herself  the 
physician  —  of  body  as  well  as  mind. 

The  aptness  of  it  struck  her  with  peculiar  force.  A 
physician !  Why  not  ?  Women  were  assailing  all  citadels 
of  professions  and  business.  Why  not  a  physician?  A 
great,  warm,  poignant  self-assurance  welled  up  within  her. 
Why  had  she  not  thought  of  it  before? 

In  the  ensuing  ten  moments  her  life  course  lay  clear  as 
an  etching  before  her.  The  film  between  herself  and  the 
future  had  suddenly  been  swept  aside.  She  was  radiantly, 
unreasoningly  happy.  She  wanted  to  sing  with  the  ecstasy 
of  the  revelation. 

in 

She  did  sing.  Whereupon  she  was  so  happy  too  that  she 
wept  —  a  little  bit.  What  had  taken  possession  of  her  ?  For 
the  first  time  she  felt  blindly  content  to  relax  to  intuitions 
and  emotions. 

It  was  her  last  night  in  the  dormitory  room,  where  she 
had  passed  four  beautiful  years.  Her  roommate  had  already 
departed.  Madelaine  arose,  her  calm  face  suffused  with  a 
quiet  glory.  She  turned  on  the  lights. 

On  the  dressing  table  the  last  of  her  effects  lay  for  final 
packing  in  her  bag  on  the  morrow.  Among  them  was  a 
poem  framed  in  a  heavy  copper  border.  It  had  hung  above 
her  study  table  the  two  years  past.  She  had  grown  very 
intimate  with  that  little  news-print,  poem  on  its  deep  brown 
mapping. 

Though  she  could  repeat  it  perfectly,  she  read  it  again 
now,  line  by  line  and  word  by  word : 

"Yet  some  great  noon  in  the  sun-glare  bright 
In  some  vast  open  space, 


212  THE  FOG 

You'll  stand,  flesh-clothed,  with  your  arms  outstretched, 
And  triumph  on  your  face." 

She  sat  for  a  quarter  hour  with  the  framed  poem  in  her 
shapely  fingers.  Her  eyes  were  looking  through  a  million 
miles.  Nathaniel  Forge!  Who  was  he?  What  had  ever 
caused  him  to  write  such  a  poem  ? 


CHAPTER  XIX 

TACT  AND  DISCRETION 


The  box-shop  was  haunted ! 

Old  Jake  Richards  made  the  discovery.  He  based  his 
contention  on  concrete  observation  and  abstract  deduction. 

Jake  was  the  father  of  the  Richards  girl  who  had  re 
mained  at  work  in  the  Forge  factory  during  the  "strike." 
He  had  three  boys  and  four  other  girls.  The  Richards  fam 
ily  lived  on  the  northern  edge  of  the  "flats"  at  the  end  of 
the  road  on  which  the  box-shop  was  situated.  It  was  a 
hollow-eyed  gray  house  with  broken  steps,  set  back  in  a 
cluttered  yard.  It  had  a  French  roof  and  its  blinds  were 
missing  and  family  bedding  was  everlastingly  hanging  from 
the  second-story  windows. 

Jake  was  Caleb  Gridley's  "all-around  man"  at  the  tannery, 
a  sort  of  workman-foreman-superintendent.  He  had  held 
the  position  for  many  years.  Socially,  from  the  mere  loca 
tion  of  his  domicile,  he  did  not  exist.  Then  there  was  the 
nature  of  his  trade,  the  skinning  of  carcasses.  Lastly  his 
gross  prolificality  in  the  matter  of  children.  Openly  he 
bragged  of  his  wife's  versatility  at  giving  birth  to  offspring 
in  the  morning  and  "doin'  a  good  week's  wash"  in  the  after 
noon.  This  may  or  may  not  have  been  true.  In  so  far  as 
fastidious  Paris  was  concerned,  however,  it  established  Jake 
as  somewhat  beyond  the  pale. 

Jake,  old  Caleb  and  a  gang  of  steam  fitters  had  worked 
until  three  o'clock  one  Sunday  morning  installing  a  new 
boiler  in  the  tannery.  Jake  had  plodded  his  weary  way 
homeward  just  before  daylight.  Arriving  opposite  the 
box-shop  office,  he  raised  his  eyes  to  receive  the  start  of  his 
life.  There  were  not  many  starts  in  old  Jake's  life,  by  the 
way.  Most  of  them  were  stops. 

The  box-shop  was  built  about  fifty  feet  back  from  the 


•214  THE  FOG 

road.  Not  back  so  far,  however,  but  that  Jake  had  an  un 
obstructed  view  of  the  office  door.  There  were  no  lights 
in  the  gaunt,  ark-like  structure.  The  nearest  arc  lamp  was 
an  eighth  of  a  mile  away,  across  the  waving  acres  of  cat 
tails,  and  rushes.  Also  the  moon  was  going  down. 

Nevertheless,  outlined  quite  clearly  in  the  window  of  that 
inky  black  office  door  was  a  human  torso.  Also  a  very  white 
face. 

It  was  absolutely  motionless,  —  that  apparition.  As  Jake 
chanced  to  be  in  the  shadow  of  the  rushes  across  the  road, 
it  appeared  to  take  no  note  of  him  or  behave  as  though  he 
had  seen. 

Jake  could  not  pass  onward.  He  stood  rooted  to  the  spot 
while  icy  chills  played  up  and  down  his  back.  Who  could 
be  in  an  unlighted  box-shop  at  three  in  the  morning,  stand 
ing  grimly  behind  the  door  glass,  gazing  out  into  the  waning 
night,  "like  corpses  fresh  from  the  grave  ?" 

Jake  was  too  far  away  to  make  out  the  features  or  gain 
any  idea  of  identity.  He  simply  remained  motionless  and 
watched. 

Then  as  picture  films  dissolve  and  fade  into  gray  nothing 
ness,  so  that  apparition  dissolved  into  the  blackness  behind. 
The  oblong  of  door  window  was  empty  once  more. 

Jake  finally  believed  a  great  physical  weariness  had  been 
responsible  for  an  optical  illusion.  He  went  home.  But 
he  awoke  his  wife  and  told  her  and  Milly  and  the  oldest  boy 
also  awoke  and  heard. 

The  boy  confided  to  his  sister  when  the  house  had  quieted : 

"I  seen  lots  o'  funny  lights  in  the  box-shop  in  the  night ! 
This  ain't  no  news  to  me!  Huh,  I  thought  dad  had  more 
brains !" 

"Brains?    Whatter  you  mean?"  demanded  Milly. 

The  young  worldly  wiseman  laughed,  turned  over  and 
went  back  to  sleep. 

II 

It  was  Milly  who  carried  the  news  to  Nathan  the  follow 
ing  morning. 

Johnathan  never  arrived  at  the  office  until  nine  or  ten 
o'clock.  But  he  never  failed  to  set  the  alarm  for  five- 
thirty.  When  it  banged  off,  he  called  to  Nathan  and  kept 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  215 

calling  him  until  he  had  the  boy  awakened  and  groggily 
dressing. 

Johnathan  believed  that  a  proprietor  should  always  be 
the  first  one  at  a  place  of  business  in  the  morning.  It  set  the 
proper  example  for  the  rest  of  the  "help."  So  Nathan 
always  reached  the  place  at  a  quarter  to  seven.  Milly  called 
Nat  over  behind  the  paper-cutter.  She  whispered  what  her 
father  had  seen  before  she  shed  her  big  over-sized  cloak  for 
work. 

Nathan's  face  colored  queerly. 

"Please  keep  this  to  yourself,  Milly,"  he  ordered.  "If 
it  gets  out,  and  the  other  girls  believe  it,  they  may  quit  in 
fright  and  refuse  to  come  back,  especially  if  I  should  want 
them  to  work  overtime,  nights." 

Milly  promised.  She  would  have  promised  "to  go  seventy 
miles  up  the  Amazon  River,  turn  to  the  right  and  stay  there 
the  rest  of  her  life"  if  Nathan  had  desired  it.  So  far  as  her 
small,  commonplace  soul  was  capable,  she  worshiped  the 
young  foreman  as  the  Greeks  once  worshiped  Apollo.  Her 
feminine  intuition  grasped  the  difficulties  Nathan  encoun 
tered  with  his  father's  twopenny  policies.  She  sympathized 
with  him.  Because  it  had  been  Nathan's  business  and 
Nathan's  father,  she  had  remained  in  her  place  during  the 
"strike."  Once  when  the  boy  had  been  compelled  to  work 
supperless  until  midnight,  installing  a  new  motor,  she  had 
plodded  uptown  in  a  storm  of  sleet  and  bought  him  a  basket 
of  lunch. 

The  boy  was  not  insensible  to  these  indications  of  interest. 
He  felt  rather  buoyant  about  them.  He  was  something  in 
the  nature  of  a  lady-killer.  But  to  "let  himself  go"  down 
into  the  slough  of  such  a  liaison,  he  could  not.  Milly  was 
"factory  help."  Owner's  sons  didn't  do  such  things.  She 
was  preposterously  out  of  caste. 

Yet  he  enjoyed  the  sensation  of  being  the  object  of  an 
unrequited  affection.  It  flattered  his  vanity.  Without  ap 
pearing  to  do  so,  he  threw  favors  in  Milly's  way.  Once 
when  she  injured  her  hand  on  a  jagged  box  nail,  he  applied 
first  aid,  and  second  aid  and  third  aid  and  fourth.  He  con 
tended  such  dressings  were  merely  saving  the  business  from 
the  expense  of  doctor's  fees.  He  was  thus  forestalling  a 
suit  for  damages  from  Milly.  It  was  a  matter  of  business 
acumen,  pure  and  simple.  Once  when  Old  Jake  had  been 


216  THE  FOG 

abusively  intoxicated  and  taken  her  weekly  pay  envelope 
cruelly  in  the  street,  Nat  had  called  her  back  and  presented 
her  with  a  second  envelope,  from  his  own  money.  It  made 
him  feel  rather  heroic  to  do  this. 

Further  than  these  small  experiments  in  fire-playing,  there 
was  nothing  between  them.  Of  course  not.  There  could 
never  be  anything  between  them.  Yet  there  were  times 
when  the  two  found  themselves  alone  together  in  the  print 
ing  room,  especially  in  the  summer  time  when  Milly's  collar 
disclosed  a  generous  V  of  soft  chest  as  white  as  milk,  that 
the  boy's  fancies  ran  riot.  They  carried  him  away,  back 
to  Foxboro  Center  days  when  he  and  I  had  first  come  in 
contact  with  the  mystery  surrounding  sex,  especially  The 
Sex.  She  was  only  a  factory  girl.  Of  course.  And  yet, 
well,  she  had  shown  in  a  hundred  crass  ways  that  she  loved 
him.  She  would  love  him  more  if  he  would  allow  it.  All 
in  all,  it  was  not  unpleasant.  Yet  the  situation  was  not 
without  its  pathos.  Milly  could  not  help  being  one  of  Old 
Jake's  offspring. 

Meanwhile,  of  course,  he  was  in  love  with  Carol,  very 
much  in  love  with  Carol. 

in 

How  much  he  was  in  love  with  Carol  only  the  heart  of  a 
nineteen-year-old  could  attest. 

Having  discovered  how  easy  and  simple  it  was  to  keep 
nocturnal  trysts,  Nathan  began  to  show  a  sudden  filial  do 
cility  which  pleased  and  puzzled  Johnathan.  The  father 
soon  realized  that  an  entire  fortnight  had  passed  during 
which  he  had  accounted  for  every  moment  of  his  son's  time 
—  perfect  alibis  in  every  instance  —  and  not  once  had  Nathan 
seen  or  spoken  to  the  girl.  If  Nathan  had  gone  two  weeks 
without  her,  of  course  he  had  taken  his  father's  counsel 
and  given  up  the  Sybarite  forever.  That  was  only  logic. 
If  the  boy  showed  a  strange  and  unaccountable  drowsiness 
around  three  o'clock  each  afternoon,  or  if  it  became  in 
creasingly  difficult  to  awaken  him  each  morning  at  five- 
thirty,  it  was  —  according  to  his  mother  —  because  he  was 
"working  too  hard  to  the  shop."  To  which  Nathan  amus 
edly  subscribed.  Because  he  had  given  heed  to  his  father 
and  yielded  obedience  without  that  threatened  murder  being 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  217 

necessary,  Johnathan  conceived  the  idea  of  letting  the  boy 
have  a  week's  vacation  and  take  a  little  trip  somewhere,  say 
down  to  Nantasket.  Nathan,  however,  failed  to  enthuse. 
With  visible  relief  on  Johnathan's  part,  the  vacation  idea 
was  swiftly  dropped.  The  father  did  not  cease  from  re 
minding  the  son  of  the  former's  magnanimity,  however, 
when  later  differences  arose  upon  other  matters. 

The  thing  which  troubled  Nathan  in  those  hectic  days  was 
Edith's  propensity  to  be  allowed  the  same  nocturnal  privi 
lege.  It  was  quite  all  right  for  Nathan  to  spend  his  nights 
in  the  company  of  a  reasonably  pretty  girl  who  was  treated 
"cruelly"  by  her  relatives.  He  was  a  man.  But  MacHenry 
shot  too  good  a  £ame  of  Kelly  pool  to  make  Nathan  feel 
that  a  duplication  of  the  stunt  by  his  sister  was  advisable. 
His  anxiety  was  ended  one  morning,  however,  when  Edith 
fell  over  a  chair  in  the  outer  hallway  on  her  return,  before 
her  brother  knew  she  had  been  out.  The  parents  did  not 
awaken  but  Nathan  did.  He  leaped  out  to  find  Edith's  hair 
down  and  her  clothing  torn.  One  sleeve  of  her  shirt  waist 
was  slit  to  ribbons  and  she  was  limping  painfully. 

"What's  happened,  Edie;  where  you  been?"  the  brother 
cried  frightenedly. 

"Oh,  he  tried  to  get  too  fresh !"  was  the  sister's  rejoinder. 
She  went  to  her  room,  destroyed  the  torn  waist  and  slipped 
into  bed.  The  MacHenry  fellow  disappeared  from  town 
next  day.  While  Nat  had  never  given  his  consent  to  Edith's 
nocturnal  absences  nor  abetted  them,  he  was  thankful  his 
sister's  interest  had  waned. 

For  Nathan,  however,  no  summer  was  ever  quite  like 
that  summer.  For  spring  passed  and  June  came,  and  at 
least  three  times  a  week  he  left  his  room  as  soon  as  he 
heard  his  father's  heavy  snoring  to  return  in  the  moist, 
mystic  hush  of  dawn  —  dawn  broken  only  by  the  energetic 
chirping  of  countless  song  birds  and  the  dull  knocking  rattle 
of  distant  milk  wagons. 

The  news  which  Milly  Richards  had  brought  advised  him 
that  he  was  growing  overbold,  however.  For  two  weeks 
thereafter,  he  and  Carol  took  the  Gilberts  Mills  road  instead 
of  going  down  to  the  box-shop,  where  the  girl  spent  the 
night  nestled  in  her  lover's  arms. 

So  it  was  not  this  illicit  tryst-keeping,  finally  wrecked  by 
its  own  success,  that  caused  Johnathan's  complacency  to  ex- 


218  THE  FOG 

plode  in  his  face.  It  was  a  letter  that  inadvertently  fell 
from  Nathan's  hip  pocket  one  day  in  the  mill  and  which 
Joe  Patridge  brought  with  a  grin  to  Johnathan. 

"Picked  up  some  private  correspondence,"  he  observed. 
"Guess  it  belongs  to  Nathan." 

Private  correspondence?     Nathan? 

Johnathan  took  the  bulky  envelope  addressed  in  a  wo 
man's  round  hand  to  his  son  at  the  local  postoffice,  —  Gen 
eral  Delivery.  He  pulled  out  the  sheets  and  the  opening 
salutation  struck  him  between  the  eyes  like  a  brick. 

Johnathan  was  limp  all  over  when  he  had  finished  that 
effusive  epistle.  The  father  scarcely  had  the  strength  to 
rise  from  his  chair.  He  found  his  hat  and  coat  and  went 
out  into  the  August  sunshine.  He  must  think,  think. 

So  they  were  keeping  the  asinine  courtship  alive  by  cor 
respondence?  Fool  that  he  was,  he  might  have  suspected. 

Yet  John  had  read  between  the  lines  of  the  girl's  letter 
what  was  no  thumb-nail  sentiment  between  lovesick  adoles 
cents.  The  two  addressed  each  other  now  as  grown  man 
and  woman.  Fortunately,  no  references  had  been  made  by 
Carol  to  their  nocturnal  rendezvous.  Johnathan  never  knew 
—  and  does  not  appreciate  to  this  day  —  toward  the  brink  of 
what  precipice  he  did  all  in  his  power  to  drive  his  boy.  But 
he  knew  that  Nathan  had  asked  the  girl  to  be  his  wife. 
She  had  accepted  him.  They  were  only  waiting  the  saving 
of  enough  money  on  Nathan's  part  and  the  making  of 
enough  "clothes"  on  Carol's  to  perfect  an  elopement. 

The  father's  imagination  and  seLf-pity  started  on  a  ram 
page  again.  His  temper  began  to  growl.  By  six  o'clock  he 
was  a  roaring  small-town  lion,  seeking  whom  he  might  de 
vour,  —  principally  something  in  the  boy  line  under  twenty- 
one. 

Tact  and  discretion!    Tact  and  discretion! 

Johnathan  knew  he  should  employ  them,  that  he  must  con 
trol  his  temper  or  another  time  he  might  break  worse  than 
his  knuckles.  Yet  how  could  he  save  his  son  from  this  hor 
ribly  yawning  pit  of  premature  matrimony?  At  last  he 
had  it!  Archibald  Cuttner! 

It  was  true  that  Johnathan  did  not  know  Archibald  Cutt 
ner  only  as  he  sometimes  thrust  the  collection  plate  in  front 
of  him  on  Sunday  mornings,  or  had  brought  his  Congress 
shoes  to  the  Main  Street  shop  for  resoling  —  "in  the  old 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  219 

days",  as  Johnathan  already  phrased  it.  But  that  did  not 
deter  him  from  going  at  once  and  laying  his  case  before  the 
girl's  grandparent  in  a  great  tumult  of  hysterical  fatherhood. 

The  Cuttners  were  finishing  the  evening  meal  as  Johnathan 
rang  the  bell.  Old  Archibald,  a  thin  little  man  with  queer, 
humped  shoulders,  came  out  with  his  napkin  still  tucked 
in  his  turkey  neck. 

They  sat  down  in  the  porch  chairs  for  a  time  and  John 
athan  handed  the  girl's  letter  aross  and  Archibald  read  it. 

"God !"  was  Cuttner's  comment  as  he  finished  page  after 
page  of  the  "mush."  It  disgusted  him  as  much  as  it  had 
angered  Johnathan.  It  had  been  fifty  years  since  Archibald 
had  been  nineteen  and  in  love. 

"S'pose  we  walk  a  pace,"  he  suggested.  "I'd  like  to 
smoke.  And  we'll  talk." 

The  two  men  left  the  house  and  while  Cuttner  puffed  at 
a  long  black  cheroot,  Johnathan  narrated  his  parental  "trou 
bles"  from  the  first. 

"Yer  right,  Forge,"  the  old  man  agreed.  "Getting  a  boy 
past  the  'girl  age'  is  the  hardest  job  a  man  can  have  shoved 
on  to  him  —  and  the  most  thankless.  Give  'em  a  free  rein 
and  the  young  asses  go  stick  their  heads  in  the  trap  o'  mar 
ried  care.  Tighten  the  rein  and  it  only  makes  'em  crazier 
to  get  at  it.  So  what's  a  man  to  do,  anyhow?  I'm  begin 
ning  to  think  we  don't  lay  on  the  harness  tug  these  days 
strong  enough  —  to  begin  with  —  girls  as  well  as  boys." 

"That  doesn't  save  Nathaniel  from  this  misalliance  with 
your  granddaughter  now.  What  can  we  do  ?" 

"What  do  you  want  I  should  do  —  at  the  girl  end  of  it?" 

"Couldn't  you  send  her  back  where  she  came  from?" 

"Back  to  A-higher?  Yeah,  I  can  send  her  back  to  A- 
higher?  But  what  assurance  you  got  this  balky  young 
colt  won't  kick  over  the  traces  the  minute  she's  gone  and 
start  after  her,  dragging  the  whiffletree  ?" 

"I'll  attend  to  that.  You  get  the  girl  out  of  town.  I'll 
keep  with  him  and  watch  him  if  I  have  to  eat  and  sleep 
with  him  every  night  from  now  till  the  time  he's  twenty- 
one." 

"Won't  be  able  to  help  yerself  then,  will  yer?" 

"But  he'll  be  a  man  grown,  then,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law. 
He'll  know  his  own  mind." 

"Ain't  far  from  it  now,  Forge.     Nineteen,  ain't  he?" 


220  THE  FOG 

"But  two  years  at  this  period  makes  all  the  difference 
in  the  world.  Anyhow,  if  he  deliberately  goes  wrong  the 
moment  he's  of  age,  my  hands  are  clean.  I'll  have  done 
my  duty  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  and  of  God.  After  that,  he's 
got  only  himself  to  thank  if  he  makes  a  foul  bed  and  has 
to  lie  in  it." 

So  Johnathan  found  an  unexpected  ally  in  Archibald  Cutt- 
ner.  And  the  latter  returned  home  to  order  Carol  to  "pack 
her  traps  and  go  back  to  her  folks." 


IV 

Johnathan  was  especially  jovial  and  agreeable  about  trie 
house  that  night.  He  came  in  whistling.  He  cracked 
a  couple  of  ancient  jokes  and  talked  about  "sparing  the 
money"  to  get  the  hall  papered.  His  family  looked  at  one 
another  in  puzzled  astonishment.  Mrs.  Forge  asked  for 
ten  dollars  to  spend  on  clothes  and  got  five,  three  of  which 
were  promptly  appropriated  by  Edith  for  a  waist  to  wear 
to  a  dance  that  she  was  going  to  attend  unbeknown  to  her 
parents.  All  of  them  felt  electrically  that  some  extraor 
dinary  business  was  afoot. 

The  family  retired  about  ten  o'clock.  The  lights  went 
out.  Johnathan  fell  asleep  almost  at  once.  He  said  it  was 
easy  for  him  to  fall  asleep  because  he  always  had  a  clear 
conscience. 

But  Nathan,  sitting  in  his  room,  heard  a  sudden  familiar 
whistle  on  the  walk  outside,  about  midnight.  He  escaped 
by  the  usual  method  to  find  his  sweetheart  in  tears.  They 
had  walked  a  considerable  distance  before  Nathan  learned 
the  cause.  Now  her  grandfather  was  "cruel"  to  her. 

"Oh,  Nathan!  I've  got  to  go  back  to  A -higher.  He  — 
he  —  doesn't  want  me  around  here  any  more." 

Nathan  heard  this  with  a  clammy  throttling  of  his  heart. 
Then  his  mind  leaped  intuitively  to  his  father's  unusual 
affability  that  night. 

"Carrie  —  I'll  bet  five  dollars  my  father's  seen  your  gramp 
and  they've  clubbed  together  to  bust  us  up !" 

"I'm  sick  and  disgusted  with  being  treated  like  children 
by  two  old  bigots!"  the  girl  cried  vehemently.  "I'm  al 
most  ready  to  quit!" 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  221 

"Quit?"  cried  Nathan  in  alarm. 

"Yes  —  quit !  We're  grown  up,  now !  What  difference 
does  a  couple  of  years  make,  anyhow?" 

"Let's  risk  the  box-shop  once  more,  Carrie.  Let's  go 
dcwn  and  talk  it  over  and  —  I'll  hold  you." 

"Holding  her"  was  eminently  to  be  desired  by  all  wit 
nesses  to  these  presents.  So  toward  the  box-shop  they 
headed. 

It  was  a  close,  muggy  night  with  the  heat  lightning  play 
ing  off  in  the  low  northwest.  Clouds  hid  the  moon  and 
stars.  The  dusty  earth  was  thirsty  for  rain.  Most 
of  the  lamps  were  already  extinguished  in  the  houses  en 
route  as  boy  and  girl  made  their  way  down  toward  the 
"flats." 

They  stole  into  the  shadowed  factory  yard,  keeping  well 
out  of  sight  close  to  the  rushes.  Nathan  unlocked  the  door 
softly.  On  tiptoe  they  entered.  The  door  was  locked  be 
hind  them.  The  office  was  very  stuffy.  It  smelled  of  musty 
ledgers  and  wintergreen  library  paste.  High  on  the  wall 
a  philosophical  old  clock  ticked  on  through  the  night. 

The  boy  removed  hat  and  coat.  He  pulled  out  one  of  the 
cane-seated  swivel  chairs.  Almost  before  he  had  seated 
himself  the  girl  was  in  his  arms  and  sobbing  convulsively 
on  his  shoulder. 

Nathan  pulled  out  a  low  desk-drawer  for  his  feet.  He 
leaned  back  and  smoothed  the  girls'  soft  chestnut  hair. 
The  lone  arc  lamp  far  across  the  rushes  shone  weirdly  into 
the  room,  making  a  rectangular  splotch  of  light  upon  the 
western  wall. 

"Oh,  Natie,"  the  girl  sobbed  softly,  "I  love  you  so!  I 
don't  want  to  go  back  to  A-higher!  And  they  treat  me 
so  cruel  —  so  cruel!  My  stepmother  doesn't  like  me  and 
my  gramp  doesn't  want  me.  I  wish  I  was  dead!" 

"You've  got  me,  dear,"  the  boy  reminded  her.  A  thou 
sand  love-struck  swains  would  have  said  the  same. 

"But  I  won't  have,  Natie,  if  I  go  back  to  A-higher!" 

"Oh,  Carrie,  I  wish  I  was  sure  dad  wouldn't  have  our 
marriage  annulled.  I'd  say  let's  get  married  right  off  now 
and  spite  him.  But  I'm  afraid  he  would.  He's  just  that 
crazy  against  me  having  a  girl  of  any  sort,  you  or  anybody. 
Then  again,  here's  the  shop.  This'll  be  mine  some  day, 
if  I  don't  run  off.  I'm  making  it  into  a  whale  of  a  business. 


222  THE  FOG 

Oh,  Carrie,  if  dad  would  only  be  sensible  like  other  boys' 
fathers!  If  he  only  would!" 

"Natie,  tell  me  something."  The  girl's  voice  was  soft. 
Her  face  was  averted.  She  picked  aimlessly  at  one  of  his 
shirt  buttons.  "Is  that  why  you've  dodged  running  away 
and  getting  married  up  to  now  ?  Because  you've  been  afraid 
your  dad  would  have  our  marriage  annulled?  Because 
you  weren't  of  age,  maybe?" 

"Yes,  Carrie.    That's  —  the  —  reason." 

A  long  silence  ensued.  The  girl's  weeping  had  ceased. 
The  night  and  the  world  were  very  quiet,  excepting  for  a 
light  hot  wind  which  was  blowing  over  the  rushes  in  the 
vanguard  of  a  shower.  Some  of  the  rushes  brushed  eerily 
against  the  box-shop  walls.  The  old  building  gave  off 
queer  creakings  and  night  noises  upstairs.  A  mouse  nib 
bled  at  something  which  rattled  in  a  far  corner. 

"Oh,  Carrie!" 

The  boy  drew  a  thick  poignant  sigh.  The  girl  turned  her 
pale  face  up  to  his  for  a  kiss.  She  got  it.  Both  sighed. 
She  nestled  close.  The  clock  ticked  —  ticked  —  ticked 

Suddenly  the  boy  sensed  that  the  girl  was  trembling.  She 
raised  her  free  hand  and  smoothed  his  hair  for  a  moment. 
Then  gradually  she  dropped  it  —  dropped  it  down  to  her 
own  face  —  held  it  across  her  eyes. 

"Nathan,"  she  whispered  softly. 

"Yes,  Carrie!" 

The  girl  drew  a  quick  breath  —  with  an  effort.  She 
placed  her  lips  close  to  her  lover's  ear  and  whispered. 

Young  Nat  Forge,  "incorrigible  son,"  sat  with  the  girl 
he  loved  at  nineteen,  —  sat  and  held  her  close.  And  his 
throbbing  eyes  stared  across  fields  of  romance,  down  into 
valleys  of  verb ot en  Avalon  where  acacia  trees  grew  too 
thickly  at  a  moment  for  passage  through. 

It  was  a  woman  who  came  to  the  first  man  in  the  Gar 
den.  She  carried  fruit  of  the  knowledge-tree  of  good  and 
evil  and  bade  him  eat.  Yet  perchance  she  loved  him  no 
less  on  that  account. 


It  was  a  quarter  to  three.  The  storm  had  rolled  and  clacked 
above  the  sleeping  town  and  countryside.     The  office  had 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  223 

been  lighted  by  swift  and  vivid  whips  of  electric  violence. 
The  deluge  of  nocturnal  rain  had  washed  the  earth  cool  and 
pure  again.  Steadily  in  a  corner  trough  outside,  an  eaves 
spout  emptied  with  a  singing  sound,  —  even  as  the  deserted 
streets  ran  mud  and  rivulets. 

The  girl  still  lay  in  Nathan's  arms.  She  had  not  moved. 
Neither  had  moved.  The  boy's  muscles  ached.  The  air 
was  horribly  stuffy,  almost  sickish.  Morning  would  come 
now  —  was  coming  —  swiftly. 

"Carrie,"  said  the  boy  huskily,  "there's  a  lot  we  owe  to 
ourselves  —  to  our  own  —  happiness!  In  fourteen  months 
I'll  be  of  age.  Fourteen  months  can  be  a  long,  long  time  — 
or  awful,  awful  short.  Suppose,  dear,  you  do  as  your 
grandfather  wishes  —  go  back  to  Ohio.  Stay  there  —  as  best 
you  can.  Live  as  I'll  be  living  —  for  the  day  I'm  twenty- 
one.  On  that  day  you  and  I'll  be  married.  That's  how 
much  I  love  you,  dear!" 

The  girl  sensed  rebuke  in  his  pronouncement.  Her  face 
burned.  Unconsciously  she  shrank  away.  She  wholly 
lacked  the  capacity  to  appreciate  the  depth  of  the  lad's  great 
affection  or  the  worth  of  his  soul  thereby  disclosed.  The 
lad  went  on  quickly: 

"Go  away  as  if  we  didn't  mind  —  as  if  we  agreed  to  the 
separation.  But  I'll  find  some  one  in  town  to  whom  you  can 
mail  your  letters  —  who'll  slip  them  safely  to  me  without 
dad  knowing.  We  can  write " 

"Nathan,  are  you  so  weak,  so  under  your  father's  thumb, 
that  you're  afraid  to  outwit  him?" 

"No,"  the  other  whispered.  "I'm  not."  And  he  spoke  the 
truth.  "I  love  you,  dear.  I  told  you  that  before." 

"Do  you  think  it's  easy  for  me  to  go?"  The  girl's  voice 
was  tight  with  pain.  What  was  it  she  feared?  What  had 
happened  that  night,  affecting  them  both  so.  vitally? 

"No  easier  than  it  is  for  me  to  stay.  It's  always  hardest 
for  the  one  who  stays,  Carrie !" 

"You're  a  man!  Such  things  mean  more  to  a  woman 
than  a  man."  They  had  both  traveled  far  from  the  night 
they  had  talked  drivel  in  the  Cuttner  sitting  room. 

"It  seems  to.  me  the  right  thing  to  do,  Carrie.  There's 
really  nothing  else!" 

The  girl  left  his  arms.  She  went  to  the  door.  With 
hands  on  hips,  she  stood  looking  out. 


224  THE  FOG 

"I  see  —  you  don't  love  me  —  as  much  as  I  thought  you 
did!"  she  said  bitterly. 

"Carrie!"  The  boy's  cry  rang  sharp.  "Don't  say  that! 
Don't!" 

"What  else  can  I  say?" 

"Carrie!     I " 

"Let's  go.  home,  Nathan.  It  must  be  almost  morning!" 

He  came  around  in  front  of  her.  He  laid  tender  hands 
upon  her  shoulders.  He  forced  her  to  look  up  into  his 
drawn  young  face. 

She  suffered  it,  yet  brokenly.  She  had  lifted  back  a 
veil  from  the  vestal  treasures  of  her  Inner  Shrine  and  he 
had  mocked  those  treasures  somehow.  So  she  believed. 

"Carrie,"  he  promised,  "I'll  wait  for  you,  I'll  work  for 
you,  I'll  plan  for  you,  I'll  bend  all  my  effort  and  all  my 
life  to  make  you  happy.  And  it  will  be  very  sweet  when 
it  comes,  dear,  —  very  sweet." 

Her  eyes  blinked  at  him  several  times  in  the  dusk.  She 
turned  her  face  away  without  answering,  off  toward  that 
distant  arc  lamp  across  the  acres  of  rain-washed  rushes. 

"I'll  go!"  she  said  in  a  strained  voice.  Then  she  hung 
her  head  suddenly. 

Nathan  raised  her  face  again  and  drew  her  to  him.  Their 
lips  met.  But  the  perturbed  boy  suddenly  shuddered. 
Carol's  lips  were  cold,  unresponsive. 

The  boy's  joints  were  stiff.  There  was  a  bitter,  brackish 
taste  in  his  mouth.  His  head  throbbed  from  lack  of  sleep. 
But  from  his  finger  he  slipped  a  small  bloodstone  ring  he 
had  purchased  the  week  following  the  "strike"  with  the 
first  big  money  he  had  ever  owned.  He  found  the  girl's 
left  hand.  It  was  cold,  lifeless.  But  the  ring  fitted  her 
finger.  He  kissed  it. 

"Let  it  stay  there  dear  —  until  —  until " 

The  girl  turned  away.  At  the  door  again  she  stood  look 
ing  out.  Around  and  around  on  her  finger  she  turned  the 
ring. 

VI 

They  stole  forth  from  the  building  and  yard.  And  vivid 
to  Nathan  came  memory  of  another  day  back  in  younger 
boyhood  when  he  had  stolen  forth  so  from  a  wood, — back 


TACT  AND  DISCRETION  225 

to  a  picnic  ground,  wondering  why  he  was  not  entirely 
happy,  why  the  kisses  of  a  girl  had  become  cloying  and 
tasteless.  Only  with  this  difference:  there  was  no  father 
now  to  meet  and  flog  him. 

Carol  went  ahead.  They  had  to  pick  their  way  care 
fully  or  sink  ankle-deep  in  mire.  The  town  still  slept  but 
it  had  changed  somehow.  It  had  changed. 

No  further  word  was  spoken  until  the  Cuttner  gate. 

The  girl  shuddered  when  with  a  proprietary  right  the 
boy  took  her  in  his  arms  for  the  final  embrace. 

"Oh,  Natie!"  she  cried  huskily,  "you'll  never,  never 
know !" 

"Know  what,  dear?" 

"I  can't  tell  you!  You  wouldn't  understand.  Good- 
by,  dear !  It's  —  it's  getting  light  and  some  of  the  neighbors 
might  see  us." 

She  had  never  remarked  upon  this  before. 

"When  will  you  be  leaving,  dear?"  he  asked  when  he 
could  trust  himself  to  speak. 

"On  the  eleven  o'clock,  probably."  It  was  a  spiritless 
answer.  "There's  no  use  for  me  waiting  around  —  if  I'm 
really  going." 

"But,  Carrie!  Don't  take  it  that  way!  Don't  act  as  if  I 
were  sending  you  off." 

"What  else  are  you  doing,  Nathan?  Good  night,  dear. 
I've  got  to  go  in!  It's  getting  lighter  and  lighter." 

"I'll  be  at  the  station  to  see  you  off  if  I  have  to  lock  dad 
in  a  closet  to  do  it!" 

"Your  dad!  I  hope  he'll  feel  satisfied  with  what  he's 
done !  He's  made  a  good  job  of  it  —  and  you !" 

Up  the  steps  she  crept  stealthily  and  into  the  house. 
Though  she  waved  him  good-by  at  the  door,  the  boy  was 
miserable.  But  she  was  gone  and  nothing  remained  but  for 
him  to  go  also. 

The  Forge  box-shop  was  never  notable  thereafter  for 
any  untoward  spiritualistic  phenomena. 


VII 

It  rained  that  morning.     A  steady  drizzle  continued  to 
fall  in  the  aftermath  of  the  thunderstorm.    At  the  breakfast 


226  THE  FOG 

table  Nathan  had  looked  his  father  straight  in  the  eye  and 
announced : 

"Dad,  Carol  Gardner's  leaving  town  for  Ohio  this  morn 
ing.  I'm  going  down  to  see  her  off!" 

Johnathan  was  angered  by  the  way  his  son  spoke.  But 
he  decided,  after  all,  he  could  afford  to  be  magnanimous. 
A  boy  Nat's  age  ought -to  begin  to  have  a  few  privileges. 

"I  understand,"  the  father  answered.  And  he  prepared  to 
leave  for  the  shop  as  though  it  was  quite  the  usual  thing. 

So  Nathan  went  to  the  depot  to  spend  a  last  few  minutes 
—  wildly  sweet,  bitterly  poignant  —  with  the  first  girl  he  had 
loved  with  the  maturing  affection  of  a  man. 

The  clouds  never  dripped  a  more  depressing,  groggy  rain. 
The  station  platform  was  a  long,  greasy  puddle.  Bobbing 
umbrellas  were  everywhere  as  the  down  train  to  the  junc 
tion  pulled  in. 

"Well  Carrie  —  good-by,"  he  said  at  last. 

"Good-by,  Nathan,"  she  answered. 

"Till  we  meet  again." 

"Yes !     Till  we  meet  again !" 

That  was  all  either  had  the  chance  to  say.  A  crowd  of 
rain-soaked  travelers  bore  the  girl  away  from  him,  into  a 
small  umbrella-closing  mob  around  the  car  steps.  Carol 
managed  a  last  wave  from  the  platform  of  the  coach.  Then 
she  had  to  attend  to  the  business  of  finding  a  seat.  The 
train  pulled  out. 

"My  God !  Have  I  done  the  right  thing — letting  her  go  ?" 
the  heartbroken  boy  cried  hoarsely,  as  the  train  drew  slowly 
from  the  platform,  gathering  speed  as  it  clicked  on  shining 
rails  down  the  yards.  But  there  was  no  one  to  answer  his 
heart  cry. 

The  train  had  gone.  Carol  had  gone.  The  town  re 
mained  —  the  factory  —  work  —  memories ! 

It  rained  that  morning ! 


CHAPTER  XX 

SIDETRACKED 


The  train  had  gone.  Carol  had  gone.  The  town  remained 
—  the  factory  —  work  —  memories. 

Coat  collar  upturned,  hands  deep-thrust  in  trousers  pock 
ets,  Nathan  slopped  through  the  puddles  along  down  to  the 
shop. 

The  office  chanced  to  be  empty  as  he  entered.  He  looked 
around.  It  was  difficult  to  believe  that  this  was  the  same 
room  in  which  just  a  few  hours  before  he  had  held  the  girl 
he  loved  in  his  arms.  It  was  difficult  to  credit  that  at  this 
moment  a  train  was  bearing  her  away,  farther  and  farther 
away;  that  there  would  be  no  more  talks  and  walks  and 
trysts ;  that  she  was  gone,  gone ! 

Then  the  reaction  came.    He  passed  a  hideous  day. 

The  rain  stopped  around  five  o'clock,  though  the  trees 
dripped  throughout  the  evening  and  pedestrians  were  gro 
tesque  through  mist  in  which  th,e  arc  lamps  were  nebulous. 

His  father  was  still  more  affable  during  supper,  even  bore- 
somely  jocular.  He  had  turned  a  neat  piece  of  business. 
Some  day  on  bended  knee  —  Johnathan  was  strong  on  the 
"bended  knee"  and  "kissed  hand"  metaphor  —  his  boy  would 
thank  him  gratefully  and  humbly.  It  was  with  a  vast  relief 
that  the  man  was  able  to  wave  his  hand  in  generous  per 
mission  when  Nathan  announced  he  was  going  for  a  walk. 
Why  should  not  Nathan  go  for  a  walk?  He,  Johnathan, 
had  walked  much  when  a  young  man.  And,  thank  God, 
there  was  no  longer  any  need  for  nerve-racking  surveillance 
to  see  that  the  son  kept  away  from  The  Sex.  Had  not  he, 
Johnathan,  made  certain  the  girl  had  left  town  by  watching 
that  departure  from  the  interior  of  a  fruit-store  opposite 
the  depot,  that  morning? 

Nathan  went  out  and  roamed  the  streets  of  Paris.     It 


228  THE  FOG 

was  inevitable  that  after  ten  o'clock  he  should  draw  near  the 
Cuttner  premises. 

In  the  shadow  of  the  big  tree  at  the  gate  he  gazed  at  the 
darkened  house.  The  lonely  boy  tried  to  imagine  Carol  still 
in  the  place,  awaiting  his  whistle.  Once  he  did  whistle,  for 
at  heart  he  was  much  of  a  child.  But  he  was  whistling  at 
the  husk  of  a  memory.  The  soul  of  the  Cuttner  homestead 
had  departed. 

In  his  loneliness  that  night,  locked  finally  in  his  room, 
the  boy's  emotions  overpowered  him  and  he  sobbed.  John- 
athan,  listening  at  the  door,  finally  tiptoed  back  to  his  own 
room. 

"He's  crying,"  the  man  told  his  wife.  "He's  sorry!  But 
he'll  come  to  see  that  his  father  knew  best  after  all!" 

"Poor  Nat !"  sighed  the  mother.  "He  does  go  into  things 
head-over-heels  so  —  even  a  little  passing  acquaintance  with 
a  strange  girl." 

"Those  tears  will  bring  him  back  to  God,"  opined  John- 
athan. 

"Oh,  bosh!"  snapped  Anna  Forge.  She  rolled  angrily  as 
far  from  Johnathan  as  she  could  get  and  in  this  contorted 
position  sighed  at  her  own  hard  lot  and  fell  asleep. 


II 

The  remainder  of  that  summer  and  autumn  and  the  ensu 
ing  winter,  when  Nat  turned  twenty,  was  a  time  of  com 
ment-causing  expansion  for  the  box-shop. 

The  town  had  been  left  for  Nathan  —  though  a  town  with 
its  soul  gone  out,  like  Archibald  Cuttner's  house  —  and  the 
factory  had  been  left  —  and  work  —  and  memories.  But  the 
greatest  of  these  was  work.  The  boy  threw  himself  into 
business  with  a  febrile  intensity  which  alarmed  his  father 
almost  as  much  as  it  pleased  him.  Alarmed  him  because  he 
could  not  exactly  account  for  it.  Also  he  had  difficulty 
keeping  up  with  his  son  in  the  matter  of  handling  the  busi 
ness.  This  aroused  his  ire. 

Nathan,  as  has  been  emphasized,  had  received  an  in 
valuable  training  under  old  Caleb  Gridley.  Moreover,  after 
Carol  left,  in  order  to  anesthetize  his  loneliness,  the  boy 
spent  evening  after  evening  with  old  Caleb.  Sometimes  this 


SIDETRACKED  229 

queer  pair  indulged  their  esthetic  souls  in  poetry,  —  Cowper, 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  Pope,  Browning;  Old  Caleb  would  sit 
in  his  big  chair  before  the  fire,  slipper  swinging,  vest  un 
buttoned,  iron-gray  head  nodding  in  approval,  as  the  lad's 
musical  voice  rose  and  fell  in  cadence  of  the  finer  selec 
tions. 

More  often  they  discussed  the  box-shop  and  its  affairs. 
To  old  Caleb  the  boy  brought  his  problems,  his  newly  dis 
covered  short  cuts,  his  dilemmas  encountered  with  the  idiosyn 
crasies  of  employees,  his  tangles  of  finance.  And  old  Caleb, 
from  a  wealth  of  Yankee  experience  and  common  sense,  en 
couraged  the  boy  in  the  right  places  and  delicately  discour 
aged  him  when  he  might  otherwise  have  "flown  off  at  a 
tangent"  and  allowed  his  enthusiasms  to  go  galloping. 

Johnathan  never  knew  of  these  consultations.  He  never 
dreamed  that  Caleb  was  really  running  his  shop  through  his 
son ;  that  Caleb  subsequently  knew  more  about  the  folding- 
box  business  than  Johnathan  himself.  The  latter  only  knew 
that  Nathan  "did  things"  and  then  "consulted  him"  after 
ward.  That  the  "things"  which  Nathan  did  reduced  ex 
penses,  increased  production,  sold  goods,  brought  money  from 
delinquent  creditors,  cut  small  figure  with  the  father.  Some 
how  his  boy  had  no  patience  when  time  after  time  the  father 
expressed  a  wish  to  "go  into  conference."  There  were  two 
great  joys  in  being  a  business  man,  for  Johnathan.  One  was 
opening  the  morning  mail.  The  other  was  ''going  into  con 
ference." 

The  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  Nathan  had  deftly  taken 
the  management  of  the  business  out  of  his  father's  hands. 
There  was  nothing  left  for  Johnathan  to  do.  There  was 
no  one  to  "boss."  He  worried  a  lot  about  it. 

This  worry  often  broke  out  in  open  rebellion.  At  such 
times,  father  and  son  quarreled.  These  quarrels  had  chiefly 
to  do  with  supplies.  One  day  Nathan  ordered  a  new  cutter- 
knife.  It  cost  twenty-eight  dollars.  The  father's  contention 
was  that  while  Nathan  might  have  had  to  get  the  knife  quickly 
to  maintain  production,  they  had  not  "gone  into  conference" 
about  it  first. 

"But  you  were  in  Baldwinsville  that  day  —  all  day!" 
snapped  Nathan.  "How  could  I  consult  you  when  you 
weren't  here  to  consult?" 

"You  could  have  awaited  my  return !" 


230  THE  FOG 


shut  down  the  cutter  to  do  it  —  s  end  Partridge  home 
—  make  him  lose  a  day's  wages  and  the  business  9-  matter 
of  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars  —  just  to  ask  you  ii 
I  could  buy  a  new  knife  which  you  wouM  have  had  to  con 
sent  to,  anyway  ?  Where's  the  sense  in  that  ?" 

The  economics  of  the  thing  were  swept  aside  by  John- 
athan.  He  clung  doggedly  to  the  contention  that  they  had 
not  "gone  into  conference"  about  it  first.  Thereupon  he 
passed  the  rest  of  that  day  evolving  a  very  elaborate  order 
system.  With  a  needle-pointed  pencil  and  a  ruler  he  laid 
out  an  order  form.  He  took  it  up  to  the  local  print  shop 
and  ordered  twenty  thousand  blanks  printed  and  finished  off 
in  pads.  Prominently  upon  the  face  of  each  was  the  line 
in  big  type:  "No  orders  valid  without  the  signature  of  J. 
H.  Forge,  Pres."  The  bill  for  the  printing  was  seventy- 
eight  dollars.  The  fallacy  of  the  system  was  that  Johnathan 
had  to  be  on  hand  to  sign  a  blank  every  time  the  business 
required  anything  from  a  bottle  of  paste  to  the  use  of  a 
storehouse  for  goods  waiting  shipment.  This  grew  to  be 
a  nuisance.  Nathan  began  to  "countersign"  the  orders,  as 
he  was  "on  the  job"  twelve  hours  a  day.  The  fouith  week 
the  blanks  were  discarded,  —  as  order  forms.  The  second 
month  the  office  girls  were  using  them  for  scratch  paper. 
But  they  cost  seventy-eight  dollars. 

It  was  Nathan  who  made  a  hurried  trip  to  Burlington 
one  Saturday  afternoon  and  landed  the  Cudworth  and  Hal- 
stead  business  for  candy  cartons.  It  was  Nathan  who  clev 
erly  "tied  up"  the  output  of  the  Cobb  City  Pressed  Board 
Mills  and  diverted  it  to  the  Forge  plant  when  prices  shot  up 
after  the  depression  of  1907.  It  was  Nathan  who  suggested 
scrapping  all  their  old  presses  and  putting  in  the  latest  type 
of  power  machines  then  being  evolved  by  a  Philadelphia  firm. 
To  finance  this  radical  move,  it  was  Nathan  who  suggested 
that  they  incorporate  the  box-shop  ancJ  put  out  fifteen  thou 
sand  dollars'  worth  of  its  preferred  stock.  And  it  was 
Nathan  who,  under  the  clandestine  tutelage  oi  old  Caleb, 
engineered  that  organization  and  got  the  money. 

Against  all  these  departures  Johnathan  fought  tooth  and 
claw,  —  all  but  the  procuring  of  new  money.  The  size  to 
which  his  thumb-viail  business  had  grcwn  began  to  frighten 
him.  More  and  more  he  wanted  to  "go  into  conference." 
But  Nathan,  the  load  of  the  organization  on  his  enthusiastic 


SIDETRACKED  231 

young  shoulders,  formed  the  habit  of  humorously  respond 
ing,  "I'm  too  busy  doing  things  to  talk  about  them!"  That 
angered  Johnathan.  It  pushed  him  back  into  a  slough  of 
self-pity,  outraged  dignity  and  mocked  parental  authority. 
All  but  the  procuring  of  new  capital,  I  say.  It  was  a  vast 
responsibility,  being  accountable  for  new  capital.  It  also 
worried  Johnathan  mightily.  But  it  was  nevertheless  a 
pleasant  sort  of  worry.  He  inflated  in  his  own  esteem.  He 
walked  about  Paris  as  a  Somebody.  He  gave  less  and  less 
time  to  the  "practical"  affairs  of  the  company.  He  no  longer 
"paid  off  personally"  on  Saturday  afternoons.  Instead,  he 
appeared  for  the  first  time  in  tailored  clothes,  kept  banker's 
hours  and  saw  himself  as  a  Capitalist. 

A  stenographer  had  long  ago  been  hired  to  ameliorate  the 
time-consuming  process  of  punching  out  correspondence  with 
one  finger  on  the  old  blind  caligraph.  Johnathan  had  a  bell 
installed  in  a  "private"  office  to  push  when  he  wanted  this 
girl.  He  pushed  it  on  an  average  of  twice  an  hour.  He 
wrote  letters  soliciting  business  from  firms  too  far  away  to 
permit  of  freight  rates  leaving  any  profit.  He  answered 
advertisements  for  catalogs  in  the  back  of  System  Magazine 
and  The  Modern  Factory.  Of  course  important  letters  about 
supplies  and  shipments  which  Nathan  had  dictated  hurriedly 
during  noon  hour,  were  sidetracked  for  these  dictations  by 
Johnathan.  Wasn't  he  president  and  treasurer? 

Frequently,  he  made  a  "tour  of  inspection"  through  his 
factory,  especially  after  the  addition  was  built,  the  principal 
feature  of  these  trips  being  to  criticize  methods  which  Nathan 
had  instigated,  pick  up  bits  of  cardboard  and  string  from  the 
floor  on  the  contention  that  the  only  way  to  get  rich  is  to 
watch  the  waste  boxes,  and  left  a  long  list  of  orders  behind 
which  were  never  executed,  which  the  employees  laughed 
at,  and  which  Johnathan  himself  forgot  within  five  minutes 
after  returning  to  his  swivel  chair. 


in 

Of  course,  all  this  expansion  and  feverish  industrial  ac 
tivity  on  Nathan's  part  had  but  one  basis :  The  day  he  was 
twenty -one  he  was  going  to  marry  Carol  and  he  proposed  to 
have  a  business  sizable  enough  and  profitable  enough  to 


232  THE  FOG 

clothe  her  in  purple  and  fine  linen  and  make  her  a  Somebody 
because  she  was  the  wife  of  Nathan  Forge. 

The  first  month  after  Carol's  departure,  and  well  along 
into  the  autumn,  bulky  epistles  arrived  for  Nathan  on  an 
average  of  twice  a  week.  Nathan  had  at  once  appealed  to 
me  to  act  as  clearing  house  for  this  correspondence,  and  I 
therefore  unwittingly  kept  a  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  court 
ship. 

Johnathan,  with  small-bored  shrewdness,  had  given  orders 
at  the  local  postoffice  that  all  Nathan's  mail  was  to  be  saved 
and  delivered  to  himself.  And  as  no  letters  with  Ohio  post- 
markings  or  addressed  in  feminine  penmanship  ever  arrived 
in  those  following  months,  Jonathan  knew  the  "affair"  was 
over,  and,  praise  the  Almighty,  "over"  successfully.  Carol's 
letters  came  to  me  in  a  double  envelope,  with  Nat's  name  in 
side.  When  he  wasn't  at  Caleb  Gridley's  in  the  evening,  he 
was  at  my  house  using  my  desk  and  typewriter  answering 
them. 

Something  of  the  old  intimacy  between  Nat  and  myself 
was  restored  after  Carol's  departure.  I  had  meanwhile  fin 
ished  high  school  but  been  obliged  to  take  a  job  in  the  local 
newspaper  office.  After  work,  or  on  Sundays,  we  fell  into 
the  habit  of  taking  long  walks  about  the  town  and  country 
side,  while  the  boy  raved  to  me  of  the  undying  affection 
in  Carol's  letters  or  his  increasing  successes  at  the  fac 
tory. 

Carol,  it  appeared,  had  recovered  her  aplomb  upon  her 
return  to  A-higher.  Her  letters  were  full  of  minute  account 
ings  of  her  time  and  activities  and  how  she  was  "getting  her 
clothes  ready"  and  what  house  in  town  Nathan  should  try 
to  procure  for  their  habitation,  and  what  a  boor  and  a  bear 
Johnathan  was,  and  what  a  trial  and  a  nuisance  he  must  be 
to  the  son  generally. 

And  yet,  through  all  of  that  twentieth  year,  and  especially 
throughout  the  summer,  there  were  days  and  nights  when 
the  boy's  loneliness  almost  crazed  him. 

Through  the  town  he  wandered,  bareheaded  beneath  the 
stars.  There  was  one  ballad  he  and  Carol  had  sung  over 
and  over  until  the  lad  knew  the  words  from  memory.  Nat 
hummed  the  tune  to  himself  on  many  starlit  nights  when 
he  walked  out  toward  the  old  lumber  pile  on  the  Gilberts 
Mills  road: 


SIDETRACKED  233 

"I  am  writing  .to  you,  Molly,  while  the  fair  moon  softly 

shines, 

As  it  did  the  night  before  you  went  away; 
When  it  shone  in  all  its  glory 
And  I  told  Love's  old,  old  story 
And  you  promised  you'd  return  and  wed  some  day." 

It  was  a  sickly,  sentimental  thing,  being  sung  in  all  the 
picture  shows  and  Wednesday-evening  courting  hours.  But 
it  was  the  second  verse  which  probed  the  boy's  heart  and 
always  brought  tears  to  his  eyes: 

"All  alone  I'm  roaming,  Molly, 
Down  the  dear  old  village  lane, 
To  the  wildwood  where  we  strolled  with  hearts  so 

light; 

In  the  old  church  they  are  singing, 
Fondest  memories  it's  bringing 
Of  the  girl  I  love,  so  far  away,  to-night. 
Some  folks  laugh  and  call  it  folly 
When  I  tell  them  you're  still  true, 
But  you  love  me,  don't  you,  Molly? 
Say  you're  coming  back,  please  do!" 

The  boy  forgot  all  about  his  poetry,  unless  it  was  to  try 
putting  his  loneliness  and  heart-hunger  in  words.  Yet  some 
how  he  could  not  publish  these.  He  filed  them  away  with 
Carol's  letters.  He  lived,  moved,  had  his  being,  in  the  box- 
shop. 

Johnathan  had  been  elected  president  and  treasurer,  Char 
ley  Newton  who  had  left  an  office  job  at  the  process  works 
to  become  the  Forge  bookkeeper  (and  learn  how  to  thwart 
Johnathan  making  entries  in  his  books  and  getting  them 
awry),  had  been  elected  vice-president.  Joe  Partridge,  who 
had  arisen  to  the  prominence  of  foreman,  was  clerk  of  the 
corporation,  though  Lawyer  Bob  Hentley  did  the  secretarial 
work  and  all  Joel  had  to  do  was  sign  on  the  dotted  line. 
Nathan,  not  being  of  age,  could  not  be  an  officer.  His  large 
capacity  was  "General  Superintendent." 

As  money  flowed  into  the  firm's  coffers,  the  prospects  of 
the  Forge  family  started  looking  up. 

Johnathan  began  buying  suits  of  clothes,  evolved  a  pro 
pensity  for  bat  neckties  and  learned  to  smoke  cigars.  He 
was  less  conscientious  about  his  attendance  at  church  and 


234  THE  FOG 

took  long  trips  off  "to  keep  the  trade  in  line."  Invariably 
he  found,  however,  that  his  son  had  contrived  to  do  this  by 
letter.  When  his  "trade"  began  discussing  deals  and  dis 
counts  of  which  Johnathan  had  never  heard,  it  made  him  feel 
rather  foolish  and  always  angry.  He  returned  grimly  de 
termined  that  he  was  going  to  run  his  own  business  or  know 
the  reason  why.  But  before  the  first  day  was  ended,  he  had 
become  so  engrossed  in  some  new  office  contrivance  or  new 
set  of  forms,  that  he  forgot  larger  problems,  —  or  some  quar 
rel  with  his  boy  sent  him  off  to  walk  the  streets  for  hours 
and  pity  himself.  The  matter  of  running  his  own  business 
sagged  until  it  was  time  for  another  venture  at  "keeping  the 
trade  in  line." 

The  Forges  left  the  Spring  Street  house  and  bought  the 
old  Longstreet  residence  on  Vermont  Avenue.  Whereupon 
Mrs.  Forge  and  Edith  began  to  "put  on  style"  and  rise  to 
the  occasion  generally.  The  womenfolk  of  a  prominent  man 
ufacturer  had  to  keep  up  appearances.  Charge  accounts 
were  opened  at  the  leading  stores  and  for  the  first  time  in 
her  mortal  existence  Mrs.  Forge's  appetite  for  chocolate 
caramels  was  satiated,  —  the  kind  with  nuts  in  them. 


IV 

Nathan  was  to  become  twenty-one  on  the  second  day  of 
December.  I  knew,  as  his  confidant,  that  the  original  plan 
was  a  wedding  between  Carol  and  himself  on  the  ensuing 
Christmas.  But  as  that  late  summer  and  autumn  dragged 
along  toward  the  first  frosts,  I  grew  increasingly  worried. 
The  cause  of  my  perturbation  was  Carol's  correspond 
ence. 

The  first  letters,  written  in  the  initial  pangs  of  separation, 
had  come  to  hand  twice  a  week,  —  or  as  often  as  Nat's  reply 
allowed.  From  September  to  the  first  week  in  November,  no 
letter  whatever  came  for  Nat.  Then  an  epistle  arrived  which 
the  boy  tore  open  and  read  with  an  avidity  that  was  piteous. 
She  had  been  ill.  She  would  write  at  greater  length  when 
she  felt  better. 

"I'd  find  an  excuse  to  make  a  road  trip,  Bill,  and  go  out 
and  see  her,"  he  told  me.  "But,  hang  it  all,  I  can't  leave 
the  factory.  Dad  would  have  things  so  snarled  up  when 


SIDETRACKED  235 

I  got  back  I'd  be  six  months  getting  the  debris  cleared  away 
and  things  going  smoothly  again." 

Worry  weighed  the  boy  down.  He  grew  increasingly  ir 
ritable  and  somewhat  surly.  For  hours  at  a  time  Johnathan 
would  sit  and  figure.  He  would  prove  to  Nathan  that  on 
some  order  made  and  shipped  six  months  before  they  had 
lost  two  mills  of  a  cent  on  every  carton.  Thereupon  he 
declared  that  Nat's  obstreperousness  was  heading  his  father 
into  bankruptcy.  (Johnathan  never  spent  hours  figuring 
orders  where  the  firm  had  cleaned  up  handsomely  and  ab 
sorbed  the  losses  on  lesser  ventures.)  He  would  arise  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  and  go  down  to  the  shop  —  after  the  fires 
had  been  lighted  in  late  October  —  to  see  if  old  Mike  Hen- 
nessy,  the  watchman,  was  sleeping  on  the  job.  He  caught 
him  one  night  fortifying  his  courage  with  a  short  flat  bottle 
and  discharged  him  on  the  spot.  The  help  came  down  next 
morning  to  find  the  fires  out.  It  was  noon  before  the  plant 
was  again  up  to  standard.  Father  and  son  fought  out  the 
question  of  "hiring  and  firing"  in  front  of  the  help  —  which 
is  an  extremely  effective  method  for  maintaining  respect 
among  employees  for  the  principals  in  any  business  —  and  all 
this  sapped  Nat's  vitality. 

"Thank  God  you're  twenty-one  in  a  few  weeks  and  my 
responsibility  is  ended !"  the  father  swore  as  he  paced  the 
expansive  dining  room  of  the  sepulchral  Longstreet  resi 
dence.  His  eyes  were  wild  and  his  hair  was  rumpled.  He 
walked  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  occasionally  grabbed 
up  a  book  or  magazine  to  hurl  at  his  son  whose  retorts  were 
always  so  apt,  effective  and  unanswerable  that  Johnathan 
had  to  vent  his  feelings  in  action  somehow. 

Then  the  night  when  Nathan  was  twenty-one  came,  — 
the  epochal  date  when  he  was  free  at  last. 

It  was  marked  by  two  episodes.  The  quarrel  over  Edith 
and  the  newspaper  clipping  I  was  called  upon  to  give  my 
friend. 

It  was  a  Saturday  night  and  Edith  was  taking  part  in 
a  church  concert  on  the  morrow.  She  had  left  the  house 
ostensibly  to  "practice  her  part"  at  the  home  of  a  friend. 
Instead  of  which  she  had  met  the  Nelson  boy  and  inquiry 
developed,  quite  accidentally,  that  she  had  "skipped  off"  to 
a  dance  in  Wickford. 

Nathan  had  taken  his  sister's  part.    The  boy,  in  the  exalta- 


236  THE  FOG 

tion  of  his  majority,  had  dropped  an  unfortunate  remark: 

"You'll  be  just  about  as  successful  in  thwarting  Edie  as 
you've  been  successful  in  thwarting  me.  You  think  you 
busted  up  my  engagement  to  Carol,  dad.  But  you  didn't. 
Carol  went  away  simply  to  get  her  clothes  ready.  And  you 
might  as  well  know  now  as  any  time  that  I'm  marrying  her 
on  Christmas  day  —  in  exactly  three  weeks!" 

Johnathan  had  remained  rather  wild-eyed  for  a  moment. 
Then  he  found  his  voice  and  started  cursing.  Not  content 
with  cursing,  he  waited  until  his  son's  back  was  turned  and 
then  dealt  him  a  blow  in  the  shoulder  which  sent  Nathan 
smashing  against  the  table.  He  knocked  off  crockery  with 
a  crash  and  sent  a  coffee  pot  into  the  front  of  a  near-by 
china  closet. 

Mrs.  Forge  came  running,  and  as  usual,  joined  in  the  al 
tercation.  Johrtathan's  cursing  included  his  wife.  His  wife 
turned  livid  at  a  particularly  vile  epithet  and  hurled  a  plate. 
Johnathan  dodged  the  plate  and  it  went  neatly  through  a 
pane  of  heavy  glass.  Then  Johnathan  picked  up  a  chair 
and  threw  it.  It  hit  the  dome  above  the  dining  table  and 
dropped  its  glass  in  a  shower,  leaving  the  brass  shell  sway 
ing  ludicrously.  Mrs.  Forge  shrieked  and  Johnathan  bel 
lowed. 

On  the  night  of  the  son's  majority  a  pleasant  time  was 
had  by  all ! 

Nathan  was  unhurt.  He  walked  from  the  room,  got  his 
hat  and  coat.  He  passed  out  the  front  door  and  left  his 
father  and  mother  having  their  last  quarrel,  —  while  he  was 
an  occupant  of  their  house.  He  came  to  me. 

"Any  mail,  Bill  ?"  he  asked  anxiously. 

I  was  punching  away  at  my  typewriter  in  the  sitting  room. 
I  recollect  that  I  took  a  long  moment  to  fill  my  pipe  and 
relight  it  before  I  answered.  But  there  was  no  way  out  — 
for  me.  I  had  been  working,  trying  subconsciously  to 
evolve  a  way  to  break  the  news  to  my  friend  gently. 

"No,  Nat,"  I  said  at  length.  "There's  no  mail  come  for 
you  —  directly.  But  mother  gave  me  a  newspaper  when  I 
came  home  —  an  Ohio  paper,  addressed  to  me." 

"A  paper!"  cried  the  boy.    "What's  the  big  idea?" 

There  was  no  way  out,  indeed.  The  paper  was  lying  on 
my  desk.  An  item  in  the  "Social  and  Personal"  column 
was  marked  in  red  ink.  I  handed  it  across. 


SIDETRACKED  237 

COLE-GARDNER 

A  pretty  home  wedding  was  solemnized  at  the  residence  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  P.  H.  Gardner  on  Temple  Street  last  evening, 
when  Mr.  Gardner's  daughter  Carol  was  joined  in  matrimony 
to  Mr.  Blodgett  Cole,  son  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roger  Cole  of 
Union  Place.  The  marriage  was  the  outcome  of  a  boy-and-girl 
romance  begun  in  the  graded  schools  of  East  Gilead,  when  .  .  . 

I  don't  think  my  friend  ever  quite  finished  reading  that 
item.    The  paper  dropped  through  his  fingers,  through  his 
knees,  down  with  a  sharp  plop!  to  the  carpet. 
"Bill!"  cried  my   friend  hoarsely,   "Bill!" 
"Hard  luck,  Nat !"  was  all  I  could  say.    "But  don't  you 
let  it  upset  you.    If  she's  that  kind  of  girl,  she  wasn't  worth 
waiting  for  in  the  first  place." 


The  boy  stumbled  down  our  front  steps.  By  the  time  I 
had  spoken  to  my  mother  and  secured  hat  and  coat,  he  had 
disappeared. 

Where  he  went  no  one  knows.  Anyhow,  it  doesn't  mat 
ter.  Around  eight  o'clock  he  appeared  at  the  box-shop. 
He  unlocked  the  office  door  and  groped  his  way  inside. 

The  office  had  expanded  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the 
plant.  It  now  bore  little  resemblance  to  the  room  in  which 
Nat  had  kept  bitter-sweet  rendezvous  with  Carol  in  those 
Memory  Nights.  A  private  office  —  two  of  them,  because 
Johnathan  had  insisted  upon  one  —  had  been  constructed  off 
on  the  right.  And  Nathan  stumbled  into  his  own,  leaving 
all  doors  open  and  lamps  burning.  He  sank  in  his  swivel 
chair  and  his  forehead  went  down  in  his  arms. 

"Hello !"  called  a  cheery  voice. 

Nathan  raised  his  head.  His  face  was  the  countenance  of 
a  middle-aged  man. 

A  girl  was  standing  in  the  doorway.  She  was  hatless, 
despite  the  winter  chill.  She  wore  an  oversized  cloak  of 
heavy  green  plaid.  The  sleeves  were  too  long  and  had  been 
folded  back.  The  cloak  was  unbuttoned;  two  of  the  but 
tons,  in  fact,  were  missing,  and  a  third  was  due  to  fall  off 
momentarily.  Underneath  the  cloak  was  a  plain  white  shirt 


238  THE  FOG 

waist  with  an  inappropriate  low  neck.  But  her  hair  was 
done  very  prettily  and  her  face  was  flushed  with  health  and 
the  nip  of  the  night  wind.  It  was  Milly  Richards. 

"Hello!"  returned  Nat  lifelessly. 

"Why!    What's  the  matter,  Nathan?    You're  sick!" 

The  boy's  hollow  eyes  fastened  upon  the  girl.  Deliber 
ately  he  looked  down  her  figure  as  she  stood  in  the  doorway, 
from  the  pile  of  brown  hair  with  its  marcelled  wave  to  the 
curve  of  her  neck,  the  slightly  heaving  bosom,  the  ample 
torso  and  hips,  the  stolid  ankles. 

"Shut  the  door!"  said  Nathan. 

Milly  was  puzzled,  not  a  little  alarmed.  But  she  shut  the 
door.  Across  to  a  chair  she  moved.  Keeping  her  eyes  in 
tently  upon  him,  she  raised  her  forearms,  with  locked  hands, 
and  rested  them  across  the  corner  of  the  intervening  desk 
top. 

The  lad  continued  to  gaze  upon  her.  The  color  of  his  lips 
wae  gruesome.  No  word  was  spoken. 

The  clock  on  the  wall  showed  seventeen  minutes  past 
eight.  The  night  wind  blew  some  papers  from  Charley  New 
ton's  desk  in  the  outer  office  where  the  door  had  been  left 
open. 

"Nathan !  Something  horrible's  happened !  Can't  you  tell 
me?" 

"Milly!  You  know  how  much  trouble  father  and  I  are 
always  having  around  the  shop,  here?" 

"Yes !    'Course  I  know !    So  does  everybody !" 

"It's  reached  the  point,  Milly,  where  I  can't  stand  it  any 
longer." 

"All  the  fellers  and  girls  would  follow  you  out  to  a  per 
son,  if  you  was  to  ask  'em." 

"I'm  especially  thinking  —  of  —  home.  You  can  imagine, 
can't  you,  that  if  dad  quarrels  with  me  here,  he  acts  the  same 
way  at  home.  Well,  he  does,  anyhow!  And  I'm  sick 
of  it!" 

"Then  I  should  think  you'd  get  out  and,"  she  dropped 
her  eyes,  adding  unsteadily,  "get  a  home  o'  your 
own." 

"I  —  haven't  —  any  one  —  to  do  it  with,  Milly." 

His  face  returned  to  his  arms.  "I  thought  I  had,  but  I 
haven't." 

"You  thought  you  had?" 


SIDETRACKED  239 

"I  thought  I  had,  yes.  But  the  girl  went  off  and  married 
somebody  else.  I  just  learned  it  —  to-night!" 

"She  couldn't  have  loved  you  very  much  to  do  that, 
Nathan." 

"I  suppose  not!     No!" 

"I'm — I'm  —  awful  sorry,  Nathan!  Sorry  for  you!  If 
there  was  anything  I  could  do,  you  know  I'd  do  it,  don't 
you?" 

He  raised  his  face  again.  His  hands  wandered  around 
the  desk  top,  as  though  groping  blindly. 

Fog!  Fog!  Or  perhaps  he  was  searching  for  some 
thing. 

"Milly,  I  feel  like  the  loneliest  chap  on  God's  earth!" 
Two  huge  tears  brimmed  in  his  hot,  hard  eyes,  blurred  his 
sight,  zigzagged  down  his  haggard,  unshaven  cheeks.  He 
arose,  walked  to  the  window.  The  girl's  eyes  were  riveted 
on  him.  When  he  came  close  to  her,  she  only  tilted  her 
head  back  to  look  up  into  his  face. 

"Nathan,"  she  lisped,  "is  there  anything  I  could  do  to 
make  you  —  happy?" 

It  was  her  soft,  ample  bosom  which  he  saw  heaving  that 
brought  that  constricted  feeling  across  his  own  chest  and 
words  to  his  lips. 

"I  don't  know,  Milly.    Oh,  God,  I'm  tired  —  tired !" 

Milly  found  the  strength  to  rise.  She  had  seen  Nat  enter 
the  office  and  followed  to  tell  him  there  had  been  a  mistake 
of  ten  cents  in  her  weekly  envelope.  But  it  was  plain  she 
had  come  instead  to  encounter,  all  unwittingly,  her  Amethyst 
Moment. 

She  made  an  appealing  picture,  standing  before  the  lad 
with  wistful  solicitation  on  her  face,  —  half -frightened,  not 
knowing  whether  to  stay  or  to  flee,  held  half  by  morbid 
curiosity,  half  by  the  titanic  possibilities  of  the  drama.  Every 
thing  about  her  was  cheap,  but  was  that  not  because  she 
had  been  denied  something  better  —  like  the  boy  himself  ? 

Hardly  knowing  that  he  did  so,  groping,  the  scion  of  the 
House  of  Forge  raised  his  left  hand.  His  fingers  touched 
the  fabric  of  her  cloak  sleeve. 

He  did  not  especially  want  Milly.  He  wanted  Woman  — 
the  solacing,  maternal  spirit  —  wanted  it  horribly  in  one  of 
life's  great  disappointments.  Milly  at  the  moment  only  stood 
for  Woman. 


240  THE  FOG 

The  girl  did  not  shrink  from  his  touch.  She  stood  motion 
less,  waiting,  with  the  blood  dying  out  of  her  face. 

The  boy's  other  hand  found  the  girl's  other  arm.  Both 
his  hands  crept  up  toward  her  ample  shoulders. 

Nathan  took  old  Jake  Richards'  daughter  to  his  heart. 
And  old  Jake  Richards'  daughter  responded  somehow, 
frightened  out  of  her  wits. 

It  was  twenty-one  minutes  past  eight.  The  town  clerk's 
office  would  be  open  until  nine  o'clock.  The  day  was  Satur 
day  and  taxpayers  came  in  to  settle  their  assessments  and 
water  rents.  There  was  time,  then,  that  night,  to  get  a 
marriage  license. 

Nathan  had  no  heart  to  take  his  hideoiis  disappointment 
back  to  a  home  where  father  and  mother  were  still  "at  it." 
Forever  ''at  it." 

Milly  thought  it  a  great  lark.  On  the  way  uptown  her 
head  was  swimming  with  the  realization. 

"I  guess  Pa  and  Maw  ain't  got  the  stunning  of  their  lives 
coming  when  they  see  I've  copped  off  the  boss!" 


VI 

One  night  back  over  the  years,  Nathan  and  I  had  idled 
down  the  Green  River  in  the  starlight,  and  the  poet  had 
dreamed  dreams  of  his  wedding  day  —  fantastic,  vague, 
exotic  —  the  wonder  noon  of  the  future  all  blurred  in 
autumn  lights,  laughter,  love  and  flowers. 

Fred  Babcock,  real-estate  agent  and  justice  of  the  peace, 
in  the  Norwalk  Block,  tucked  a  small  brown  flask  hurriedly 
in  the  bottom  drawer  of  his  desk  when  he  heard  somebody 
coming  up  the  stairs.  He  threw  his  "chew"  in  the  stove 
and  nipped  his  finger  on  the  hot  iron  door.  He  was 
shaking  the  smarting  hand  and  swearing  when  Nathan 
appeared  in  the  doorway.  There  was  some  one  behind 
him. 

"Mr.  Babcock,"  asked  the  boy  in  a  strained  voice,  "won 
der  if  I  could  get  you  to  perform  a  m-m-marriage  ?" 

"Whose?"  gaped  Fred. 

"Mine!     Mine  and  Miss  Richards." 

Fred  looked  from  one  to  the  other  blankly. 

"Well,  of  course,  if  it's  bad  as  that,"  he  assented.    "Come 


SIDETRACKED  241 

in!  Gawd!  I  ain't  hitched  nobody  for  so  long  b'darned  if 
I  know  where  to  look  for  the  book." 

Milly  clung  to  Nathan  frightenedly.  Her  other  hand  held 
her  cloak  together,  for  the  dangling  button  had  ceased  its 
dangling  somewhere  en  route. 

Fred  found  the  book  in  an  empty  cigar  box  that  had 
fallen  upon  a  pile  of  old  overshoes  and  fishing  tackle. 

"B'darn !  We  gotta  have  a  witness !"  he  declared.  "An* 
you  gotcha  license  all  proper,  aincher?" 

Nathan  could  produce  a  license  but  not  a  witness.  Fred 
departed  to  "scare  one  out."  He  was  pleased  with  the  pros 
pect  of  making  five  dollars  so  easily  to  top  off  the  week,  — 
just  like  "picking  it  up  in  the  street." 

While  Fred  was  absent,  Milly  and  Nathan  sat  stiffly. 
Dimly  in  the  grief -stunned  boy's  mind  was  a  thought  that 
by  this  he  was  going  Carol  one  better !  Wait  until  she  heard ! 
Then  too,  he  never  would  have  to  go  back  to  his  father  and 
mother.  Milly  was  all  right !  As  good  as  the  run  of  'em ! 
She  was  The  Sex  anyhow  and  had  proved  that  she  loved 
him.  Had  she  not  stayed  at  work  during  the  strike?  Had 
she  not  gone  uptown  once  and  brought  him  down  a  basket 
of  supper,  unasked? 

Fred  came  back  with  a  colored  man  in  tow,  —  old  Ezra 
Hassock,  janitor  for  a  half-dozen  Main  Street  blocks  and 
tender  of  their  nocturnal  fires.  He  wore  white  overalls 
and  a  dented  felt  hat.  The  hat  had  cobwebs  on  it,  and  his 
hands  hung  from  the  length  of  his  arms  like  smoked  hams. 

"Well,  stand  up,  and  we'll  have  the  agony  over,"  was 
the  cheery  way  the  justice  of  the  peace  phrased  it.  "Gotta 
ring?" 

"Yes,"  said  Nathan  thickly.  "I  bought  one  when  we  came 
across  the  square  just  now." 

"Well,  grab  her  left  lunch-hook  and  hang  on,"  was  Fred's 
equally  jovial  way  of  directing  the  ceremonies.  "You,  Ezra ! 
Take  the  cotton  battin'  out  your  ears  and  look  like  a  witness !" 

"Ain't  got  no  cotton  battin'  in  mah  ears!"  rejoined  Ezra. 
Thereat  all  present  laughed.  It  was  an  excellent  joke. 

"In  the  name  of  God,  Amen!" 

A  knife  ran  into  Nathan's  heart.  Where  was  Carol  this 
moment  and  what  was  she  doing  ?  The  paper  must  have  been 
mailed  a  week  before  —  she  had  been  several  days  on  her 
honeymoon  already.  .  .  .  Carol  had  wanted  him  to  get  the 


242  THE  FOG 

Harvey  house  in  Pearl  Street.  .  .  .  Milly's  hand  was  very 
sweaty  and  hard,  calloused  from  the  pasting  of  many  boxes. 
.  .  .  Where  had  old  Ezra  got  so  many  cobwebs  on  his  hat? 
.  .  .  Where  would  he  take  Milly  that  first  night?  .  .  . 
Where  was  Carol  and  what 

"Yes !  I  mean  'I  do !'  "  he  answered  anent  keeping,  lov 
ing  and  cherishing  this  female  in  sickness  and  in  health  and 
all  the  rest  of  it,  whatever  it  was. 

He  was  dimly  conscious  that  he  was  trying  to  get  the  ring 
on  Milly's  finger;  it  didn't  fit  half  so  well  as  it  had  in  the 
jewelry  store.  Ezra  was  grinning  —  showing  ivories  like  an 
enameled  picket-fence  —  it  was  fourteen  minutes  after  nine 
o'clock  —  Carol  had  said  she  wanted  the  living  room  fur 
nished  in  Mission 

"...  I  now  therefore  pronounce  you  man  and  wife  and 
may  God  bless  your  union,  Amen!  And  it'll  cost  you  five 
bucks." 

Nathan  and  Milly  came  down  into  Main  Street.  It  looked 
quite  like  Main  Street  on  a  hundred  other  Saturday  nights. 

"Where'll  we  go  ?"  asked  Milly,  as  they  paused  on  the  top 
step  in  front  of  the  Norwalk  Block  so  as  not  to  be  jostled 
by  the  grocery-bill-paying,  Sunday-meat-buying  crowd. 
She  clung  to  Nathan's  arm  with  one  hand  and  in  the  other 
held  her  marriage  certificate  as  though  she  didn't  know 
what  to  do  with  it.  Which  she  didn't. 

"I  dunno!"  said  Nathan  vaguely.  "What  do  you  want 
to  do?" 

"I  want  to  go  home  and  tell  Ma  and  the  kids,"  returned 
Milly  honestly.  "To  think  when  I  left  the  house  to-night, 
I  was  coming  back  married!  My  Gawd!" 

They  descended  the  four  stone  steps  and  were  obliterated 
at  once  in  the  serpentine  sidewalk  traffic  of  hopeless  medioc 
rity. 


BOOK  TWO 
SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS 


CHAPTER  I 

TOO  EASY   MONEY 


Regardless  of  the  chagrin  the  reminder  often  cost  its  wom 
enfolk,  the  foundation  for  the  Ruggles  family  "Money" 
had  been  laid  in  the  junk  business.  Junk.  Exactly.  Junk! 

Jasper  Ruggles,  the  grandfather,  had  started  life  as  one  of 
those  peddlers  who  drove  about  New  England  in  a  cart  re 
sembling  a  small-sized  circus  wagon  of  flaming  scarlet.  He 
swapped  tinware  with  farmers'  wives  for  rags  and  old  metal 
and  never  got  cheated.  From  gathering  old  metal  was  but 
a  step  to  melting  it.  From  melting  was  but  another  step  to 
finding  a  manufactured  product.  So  an  iron  works  had 
flourished  following  the  Civil  War  and  canny  investments 
had  done  the  rest. 

Amos  Ruggles,  Gordon's  father,  called  himself  a  barrister, 
—  not  a  lawyer,  but  a  barrister !  He  maintained  an  expen 
sive  suite  of  offices  in  one  of  the  most  prominent  Springfield 
buildings,  but  no  one  had  ever  heard  of  his  trying  a  case 
and  among  his  fellow  attorneys  he  was  considered  more  or 
less  of  a  joke.  He  looked  after  the  family  "investments" 
and  dabbled  in  politics.  Six  months  of  the  year  he  spent 
traveling,  principally  in  Europe,  where  he  demonstrated  what 
Americans  are  not  like  at  home,  even  at  their  worst. 

In  appearance,  Amos  Ruggles  was  a  tall,  ample-girthed  im 
maculately  clad  man  with  a  certain  over-clean  whiteness  about 
him,  a  whiteness  that  looked  unhealthy.  He  suggested  he 
had  been  kept  away  from  sunlight  until  his  flesh  had  become 
bleached.  His  thin,  silky-fine  white  hair  was  combed  from 
the  back  of  his  head  forward,  and  he  had  a  perpetually  sur 
prised  look  in  his  eye  as  though  forever  startled  at  finding 
himself  alive  and  asking,  "Bless  my  stars!  Where  am  I, 
anyhow?"  He  had  another  look  on  his  face,  a  look  of  always 
being  on  the  point  of  saying  something  tremendously  impor 
tant  but  never  quite  bringing  himself  to  do  it. 


246  THE  FOG 

His  political  experience  to  date  had  been  but  a  single  term 
in  the  legislature.  Certain  questionable  "interests"  who 
wanted  a  "perfect  dummy"  in  the  place  had  been  responsible, 
not  Amos's  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  the  laboring  classes 
and  his  brilliant  defense  of  the  Constitution,  as  he  had  always 
assumed.  During  this  single  term,  his  Bills  were  versatile 
if  not  always  feasible.  Among  those  especially  demonstrat 
ing  the  man's  brilliance  may  be  cited  (i)  A  Bill  —  to  miti 
gate  social  conditions  by  making  it  a  penal  offense  for  la 
borers  earning  less  than  a  thousand  a  year  to  have  more  than 
two  children;  (2)  A  Bill  —  making  it  a  criminal  violation  to 
alight  from  moving  street  cars  while  facing  in  the  wrong 
direction.  His  bills  were  quietly  killed  in  committee.  Still, 
they  were  good  bills  and  if  they  had  gone  through,  Amos 
felt  that  he  would  not  have  lived  wholly  in  vain.  His  inten 
tions  were  good,  at  any  rate,  even  if  the  execution  of  his 
legislation  may  have  presented  difficulties  insurmountable. 

Margaret  Ruggles,  his  wife,  was  a  Theddon  and  even  as 
a  girl  had  been  so  wealthy  she  could  afford  to  be  homely. 
She  came  from  "Boston  and  Rhode  Island,"  as  the  local 
society  reporters  quoted  it,  making  it  sound  like  a  railroad. 

In  later  life  Margaret  Ruggles's  nerve  was  iron  and  her 
savoir  faire  flawless.  Rumor  had  it  that  she  instructed  Amos 
how  and  when  to  do  everything,  from  selling  United  Fruit 
Common  to  changing  his  waistcoat.  And  a  local  grocer  had 
a  yarn  about  having  sent  a  special  team  out  to  the  Ruggleses 
residence  to  deliver  three  lemons,  and  Margaret  had  ordered 
the  man  to  wait  and  take  back  two  of  them  because  cook 
had  discovered  there  were  already  two  lemons  in  the  house. 
She  was  a  close  buyer  and  a  difficult  customer  and  yet  young 
Gordon  —  only  child  of  these  two  —  was  allowed,  from 
earliest  boyhood,  to  spend  money  like  a  Monte  Cristo  in 
knickers.  At  three  he  cried  for  the  moon  but  was  given 
the  earth  instead,  and  found  it  so  absorbing  that  he  never 
gave  it  back.  Not  even  when  other  people  wanted  it. 

Gordon  had  never  gone  to  school  three  consecutive  years 
in  his  life.  He  had  never  shown  interest  in  anything  for 
two  consecutive  days,  in  his  life,  —  except  fighting.  Yet  he 
even  refused  to  make  fighting  a  business,  or  he  might  have 
turned  out  a  notable  pugilist  or  worked  his  belliocosities  off 
to  some  good  purpose  in  the  Army. 

Amos  and  Margaret  absolutely  refused  to  credit  their  son 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  247 

with  faults.  They  looked  at  him  and  beheld  that  he  had  a 
body,  a  brain,  a  temperament  and  an  appetite.  But  faults? 
Not  a  one!  He  committed  indiscretions,  irresponsibilities, 
sowed  a  few  wild  oats,  perhaps!  But  that  was  to  be  ex 
pected.  Why  should  he  work  when  the  Ruggleses  already 
had  more  money  than  they  could  ever  spend  ?  Besides,  why 
should  he  work  when  he  wouldn't  work  and  they  couldn't 
make  him  work,  even  if  they  wanted?  That  he  would  ulti 
mately  "go  in  for  something"  as  his  father  had  "gone  in"  for 
law  —  and  foreign  travel  —  was  vaguely  understood.  But 
the  insinuation  that  Gordon  was  one  whit  worse  than  a  mil 
lion  other  boys  they  would  not  tolerate  an  instant.  The 
Ruggleses  —  second  generation  —  had  a  queer  outlook  on 
life,  one  which  it  is  perhaps  difficult  for  hoi  polloi  to  under 
stand:  The  world  was  their  personal  bootjack  and  any  one 
who  essayed  to  question  that  fact  was  a  "disturbing  ele 
ment"  and  "a  menace  against  established  institutions." 

Nevertheless,  Gordon  at  twenty-six  was  giving  Amos  not 
a  little  anxiety.  While  a  few  wild  oats  were  expected  of  a 
boy  to  show  that  he  was  a  boy  and  virile  —  in  fact,  Amos 
had  rolled  in  a  wild  oat  or  two  himself  when  a  boy  or  when 
his  wife  was  occasionally  elsewhere  —  it  didn't  necessarily 
follow  that  the  son  should  turn  wholesale  agriculturist  and 
rear  elevators  with  the  family  money  in  which  to  house  his 
disturbing  grain  crops.  Not  that  it  offended  Amos's  sense 
of  decency  —  the  things  he  had  to  pay  for,  from  broken 
china  to  broken  women  —  so  much  as  it  affected  the  family 
prestige.  It  was  time  the  boy  calmed  down,  and  the  boy 
gave  no  symptoms  whatever  of  calming  down.  He  had,  in 
fact,  calmed  upward  considerably  of  late  and  grown  a  little 
out  of  hand,  —  if  indeed  he  ever  was  in  hand.  Thereat 
Amos,  like  most  of  his  type,  looking  into  his  own  experi 
ence  for  solution,  hit  upon  the  brilliant  idea  that  what  Gordon 
needed  most  of  all  to  straighten  him  out  was  a  brainy, 
strong-minded  wife.  The  very  thing.  Gordon  must  have 
a  wife.  Then  a  baby  or  two.  If  a  baby  or  two  couldn't 
tone  Gordon  down  then  nothing  could  tone  Gordon  down. 
Amos  would  speak  to  his  son  about  it. 

Which,  on  a  winter's  evening  in  March,  1915,  he  did. 
Gordon  was  talking  about  going  to  France  and  "guttin'  Frit- 
zies"  for  the  fun  of  it,  and  that  must  be  nipped  at  any  cost. 
Why,  the  boy  might  get  shot.  Amos  was  especially  peeved 


248  THE  FOG 

at  the  Germans  and  the  war,  anyhow  —  it  was  making  a  con 
tinental  colander  out  of  all  his  favorite  watering  places  and 
spoiling  his  annual  trips  abroad  by  filling  the  seas  with  sub 
marines  that  actually  blew  people  up.  Not  that  Gordon  cared 
anything  about  the  moral  aspects  of  the  war.  Such  a  venture 
merely  promised  a  new  thrill. 

Amos  called  his  boy  into  the  big  Ruggles  library,  had  a 
Scotch  and  soda  with  him,  lighted  a  big  cigar  and  assumed 
a  place  on  the  hearth  rug  with  one  hand  behind  his  coat  tails. 
There  he  rocked  on  his  toes  and  heels  and  became  the  De 
claiming  Parent. 

II 

"Marry!"  cried  Gordon.  "Who  the  devil  will  I  marry? 
Those  I  might  marry  I  don't  want  —  I  can  have  'em  any  old 
day.  And  those  I  do  want  I  can't  have,  because  they  won't 
have  me.  So  damn  all  women,  anyhow." 

"Tut,  tut,  sir!"  cried  Amos.  "Your  mother  is  a  woman, 
understand !" 

"Gad,  so  she  is!  Well,  well!  We'll  make  an  exception 
of  her.  Damn  all  the  others  —  excepting " 

"I'd  like  to  know,"  declaimed  Amos  grandly,  as  he  had 
expounded  his  two-child-a- family  bill  before  the  legislature, 
"I'd  like  to  know,  sir,  where  the  woman  is  you  might  want 
that  you  can't  have?  Tut,  tut,  sir!  Do  not  let  us  fritter 
away  our  time  with  nonsense." 

"If  you  want  to  know  straight,  Pop,  there's  only  one 
skirt  in  these  whole  United  States  I  could  ever  care  two 
hamstrings  for.  But  she's  about  as  interested  in  me  as  that 
Frances  Willard  dame  would  be  to  sit  in  on  a  bock-beer  con 
vention." 

"Ah!  Then  you  have  felt  the  possibilities  in  the  grand 
passion?  And  may  I  have  the  lady's  name,  sir?  We  shall 
see  what  can  be  done  about  ii." 

"It's  that  girl  of  Aunt  Grace's  —  Madelaine!" 

"What,  sir?     What?     The  brat   from  the  orphanage?" 

"Believe  me,  Pop,  she's  a  long  throw  from  being  a  brat. 
I  guess  you  haven't  seen  her  lately." 

"Not  for  half  a  dozen  years,  sir,  I  haven't  seen  her.  Went 
to  college,  didn't  she?  To  be  a  lady  doctor,  or  something?" 

"She's   in   Medical   School   now.     She  graduated    from 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  249 

Radcliffe  this  past  June.  And  you  can  take  it  from  me,  Pop, 
she's  there!" 

"But,  my  God,  sir !  Do  you  mean  to  sit  there  and  in 
sinuate  that  a  brat  from  an  orphanage  —  a  Nobody !  —  re 
fuses  to  look  with  favor  on  the  suit  of  a  Ruggles?  She 
cannot  understand  who  you  are,  sir !  You  cannot  have  asked 
her  seriously.  Have  you  asked  her,  by  the  way?  Have 
you  ?  Seriously  ?" 

"No.  And  I  haven't  asked  the  King  of  Belgium  to  come 
over  here  and  take  a  job  driving  my  Stutz,  either.  There 
are  some  things  that  simply  aren't  done." 

"But  what  has  she  against  you,  especially?  Doesn't  the 
girl  realize  she's  a  Nobody?  Doesn't  she  see  how  she  could 
improve  her  social  position  by  marrying  my  son  —  a  Rug- 
gles?" 

"She  doesn't  give  a  hoot  for  anybody's  social  position. 
Not  even  her  own.  She's  class,  Pop,  with  a  capital  C.  If 
you  could  see  her  as  she's  grown  up  now,  you'd  understand 
and  close  the  door  softly  as  you  go  out.  I've  got  as  much 
chance  of  making  a  hit  with  her  as  the  Czar  of  Russia  stands 
of  being  elected  recording  secretary  of  the  Forest  Park 
Home  Improvement  and  Loan  Society." 

"Do  I  understand  you  to  say,  sir,  you  want  this  girl  — 
that  you'd  marry  her,  and  settle  down  if  she'd  have  you?" 

"Will  a  duck  swim?" 

"We  are  not  discussing  ducks,  sir.  We  are  discussing 
women!  This  is  most  interesting  and  enlightening.  We 
will  look  into  this  matter.  Yes,  we  certainly  will  look  into 
the  matter.  At  once!" 

Which  Amos  Ruggles  at  once  set  about.  As  John  Alden 
for  his  boy,  he  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  steam  fitters  who 
ever  tackled  a  job  and  had  to  go  back  for  his  tools  while 
a  boiler  exploded. 

in 

Having  nothing  of  larger  consequence  to  attend  upon,  that 
week,  Amos  took  a  mighty  trip  to  Boston  to  interview  the 
"brat  from  the  Orphanage"  on  behalf  of  his  beloved  off 
spring. 

Madelaine,  strange  as  the  statement  may  appear,  had  never 
met  Amos  Ruggles.  Rising  hastily  now  from  her  book- 


250  THE  FOG 

littered  desk,  she  beheld  her  maid  admit  to  her  outer  sitting 
room  a  very  carefully  groomed,  white-faced,  fastidiously 
caned  and  perfectly  spatted  elderly  man  who  wore  a  red 
carnation  in  his  buttonhole  and  a  Facial  Expression  prepared 
for  the  worst. 

But  Madelaine's  interest  was  not  to  be  compared  with  old 
"Am's"  stunned  surprise  when  he  raised  his  owlish  eyes  and 
saw  "the  brat  from  the  Orphanage"  confronting  him  from 
the  opposite  doorway.  Subconsciously  Amos  had  failed  to 
conceive  of  that  brat  as  anything  but  a  brat.  Certainly  not 
a  woman  grown  to  maturity.  Up  to  the  moment  of  admit 
tance  he  had  looked  vaguely  forward  to  interviewing  a 
knock-kneed  child  in  pigtails  and  a  gingham  apron.  He  had 
once  visited  an  orphanage  while  on  a  legislative  committee. 
He  had  come  away  impressed  that  the  crying  need  of  the 
institution  at  the  moment  was  to  have  its  individual  and  col 
lective  nose  wiped. 

Instead  of  such  a  mite  of  parentless  humanity  whom  he 
might  pat  on  the  head  and  suggest  peanuts  to,  the  man  con 
fronted  a  tall,  perfectly  poised,  athletic  young  woman  whose 
calm  eyes  made  him  wonder  if  he  had  rumpled  himself  any 
where  in  that  hectic  two-hour  trip  on  the  Boston  and 
Albany. 

For  an  instant  Amos  felt  petulant.  Persons  unknown 
had  tricked  him.  For  Madge  Theddon  was  grown  into  a 
"goddess."  The  metaphor  is  Amos's.  And  she  "had  a  way 
with  her."  Yes,  she  had  very  much  of  a  way  with  her. 
One  of  her  fellow  students  had  described  her:  "Calm  as 
a  mountain  thinking  aloud;  ineligible  for  analysis  as  moon 
light  playing  on  a  nocturnal  waterfall." 

"I  am  Madelaine,  yes!"  she  announced  in  response  to 
"Am's"  suggestion  that  there  was  a  mistake  somewhere. 
"You  are  my  mother's  brother-in-law.  I  am  very  glad  to 
make  your  acquaintance,  Mr.  Ruggles."  She  moved  for 
ward,  extending  a  lithe,  cool,  capable  hand. 

Amos  took  the  hand  and  kissed  it,  or  he  believed  he  kissed 
it,  at  the  same  time  annoyed  that  she  had  called  him  her 
mother's  brother-in-law  instead  of  her  own  uncle. 

"Madam,  charmed!"  And  Amos  made  another  bow. 
But  he  was  not  charmed.  He  was  bumped.  He  was  badly 
bumped !  There  was  not  a  doubt  about  it. 

With    an    amused    smile,    Madelaine's    maid    withdrew. 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  251 

Amos  produced  a  billowy  silk  handkerchief  and  began  pat 
ting  various  exposed  portions  of  his  anatomy.  He  ran 
out  of  exposed  portions  and  then  accepted  the  chair  Made- 
laine  indicated,  still  in  his  imbecilic  daze. 

"Y-Y-You  may  think  it  strange  that  I  have  called,  Miss 
Madel  —  Miss  Madel  —  Miss  Theddon  —  it  is  about  my  son. 
You  two  have  become  quite  well  acquainted  in  the  past,  I 
understand." 

"Quite,"  returned  the  girl.    Her  tone  was  a  trifle  ironic. 

Amos  was  at  a  loss. 

"Yes,  yes !  True,  true  —  very  true."  Came  another  dis 
tressing  pause  while  Amos  considered.  "You  see,  it's  like 
this,  Miss  Madel  —  Miss  Madel  —  Miss  Theddon  —  getting 
along  famously,  are  we  not?  —  nothing  could  please  his 
mother  and  myself  just  now  more  than  the  knowledge  that 
he  is  married  and  —  safely  in  the  hands  of  some  good  and 
firm- willed  woman.  And  so  —  beautiful  apartment  you  have 
here !  —  I  decided  I  would  come  down  and  talk  it  over  with 
you." 

"I  see,"  Madelaine  responded.  "You've  come  to  enlist 
my  aid,  perhaps,  in  rinding  a  wife  for  Gordon.  Or  my 
advice  as  to  how  to  proceed ;  which  is  it  ?" 

"Well  —  er  —  in  fact,  a  little  of  both  and  none  of  either." 
Amos  was  happily  growing  more  at  ease.  He  stored  his 
handkerchief  in  his  outside  breast  pocket,  left  a  couple  of 
inches  exposed,  put  his  pink,  manicured  finger  tips  pre 
cisely  together  between  his  knees. 

"The  idea  is  this,  Miss  Madelaine.  The  boy  is  —  well  — 
the  boy  is  —  deeply  impressed  by  yourself  and  —  purely  as 
a  father  —  with  a  father's  paternal  interest,  understand  —  I 
have  called  to  appraise  for  myself  the  extent  of  the  gulf 
between  you  and  —  get  you  to  consider  the  matter  for  —  er 
—  early  negotiation." 

"What  matter?    Just  what  do  you  mean?" 

"The  matter,  Miss  Madelaine,  of  —  er  —  becoming  his  — 
wife!" 

Amos  breathed  once  more.     The  worst  was  over. 

Madelaine  could  not  control  the  flush  that  crept  toward 
her  temples. 

"Did  Gordon  ask  that  you  do  this  ?"  she  demanded. 

"Not  at  all !  Not  at  all !  The  idea  is  my  own  entirely  — 
absolutely  my  own!"  Amos  inferred  that  as  an  idea  it 


252  THE  FOG 

certainly  had  its  points  and  on  the  whole  he  was  rather  proud 
of  it. 

"Then  Gordon  knows  nothing  of  it?" 

"Not  a  whittle,  Miss  Madeiaine,  not  a  whittle." 

The  girl  sat  for  a  time  in  silence.  Her  emotions  were 
resentful.  They  wanted  to  riot.  Her  lips  twitched  once 
or  twice.  Then  came  a  saving  sense  of  humor. 

"Just  why  should  I  consider  a  marriage  with  your  son, 
Mr.  Ruggles  ?  On  what  basis  do  you  rear  that  contention  ?" 

"I  — er  — I " 

Madeiaine  pitied  his  sudden  distress.  For  the  first  time 
in  his  life  Amos  Ruggles  appreciated  that  any  reference 
to  the  Ruggles  wealth  would  be  crude  and  insulting,  before 
such  a  woman  as  he  confronted  now. 

"He's  a  —  he's  a  —  mighty  fine  boy,  Miss  Madeiaine!" 
was  the  father's  compromise. 

"I  apologize  if  I  seem  rude,  Mr.  Ruggles.  But  that  must 
remain  a  matter  of  opinion." 

"You  mean  —  he  isn't  a  mighty  fine  boy  ?" 

"Must  we  discuss  him  —  his  good  points  and  his  bad  ?" 

"But  he  has  no  bad  points,  my  dear  lady.  Of  course, 
during  adolescence  he  has  been  virile  and  erratic  and  per 
haps  indulged  himself  in  some  few  indiscretions  common 
to  all  boys.  Why,  I  have  even  passed  through  such  a 
stage  myself.  But  there's  nothing  really  bad  about  him 
—  nothing  but  what  a  characterful  wife  could  eventually 
eradicate." 

"Mr.  Ruggles,  has  Gordon  ever  recounted  how  very  un- 
gentlemanly  —  in  fact,  grossly  insulting  —  his  conduct  to 
ward  myself  has  been  consistently  —  from  the  moment  of 
our  first  meeting?" 

Incredulity,  a  flick  of  exasperation,  now  passed  over  Amos 
Ruggles's  features.  There  was  a  certain  trick  of  intonation 
in  Madelaine's  voice  which  quashed  irrevocably  any  argu 
ment  that  Gordon  had  not  been  ungentlemanly  and  insult 
ing.  And  yet  Amos  was  not  quite  willing  to  subscribe  to 
that.  And  argument  was  cheapening. 

"Just  how  has  he  acted  —  what  has  he  done  ?" 

"You  really  wish  me  to  tell  you?" 

"I  should  consider  it  in  the  light  of  a  very  great  favor, 
my  dear  lady." 

Madeiaine  considered.     She  leaned  back  in  the  chair  and 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  263 

put  two  slender  fingers  of  each  hand  at  a  temple,  her  dark 
eyes  fixed  appraisingly  upon  her  foster-uncle. 

Then  she  told  him. 

She  began  with  Gordon's  conduct  and  language  the  day 
ten  years  before,  when  he  had  violated  the  privacy  of  her 
bedroom.  That  was  insipid,  however,  beside  the  later  in 
dignities  she  had  suffered.  She  gave  a  truthful  account  of 
each  situation  when  he  had  taken  her  at  a  disadvantage, 
forced  himself  upon  her,  defiled  her  lips  or  tried  to  com 
promise  her  still  more  seriously.  The  night  of  the  bogus 
auto  accident  became  but  an  incident  in  that  sordid  recount. 
The  most  brazen  piece  of  insult  and  effrontery  had  been 
a  night  in  a  Boston  hotel  when  Gordon  had  followed  her, 
secured  a  room  next  to  her  own  and  bought  a  mercenary 
night  clerk  to  let  him  scratch  the  girl's  name  from  the 
register  and  substitute  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gordon  Ruggles" 
instead.  He  then  added  the  consecutive  room  numbers  as 
a  suite.  Cheap  witnesses  had  been  procured  to  substan 
tiate  that  Madelaine  had  apparently  gone  to  Boston,  met 
Gordon  clandestinely  and  shared  an  apartment  with  him 
for  a  night.  With  his  citadel  of  crazy  folly  thus  gar 
risoned,  the  foster-nephew  had  brazenly  offered  the  girl  the 
alternative  of  marriage  or  exposure,  and  only  an  astute 
lawyer  had  contrived  to  squelch  the  scandal  without  pub 
licity. 

Amos  was  dum founded.  She  waited  for  him  to  com 
ment.  But  he  held  his  peace.  Then  Madelaine  laughed 
good-naturedly. 

"And  after  such  persecution  —  I  hope  you'll  permit  me  to 
call  it  that,  Mr.  Ruggles  —  ten  or  twelve  years  of  it !  —  you 
come  to  me  and  suggest  I  marry  your  son  because  he's 
really  'not  such  a  bad  fellow,  after  all !'  " 

"Don't  you  believe  —  a  good  woman  —  can  reform  a 
man  ?"  Amos  demanded  quickly. 

"That  all  depends  on  the  man.  In  some  cases,  absolutely 
not.  The  material  must  first  be  there  to  work  upon.  As 
a  general  proposition,  I  consider  it  thankless  nonsense. 
There  may  be  some  good  men  who  have  been  bruised  and 
buffeted  and  almost  wrecked  by  life's  cruellest  vicissitudes. 
They  may  have  lost  their  moorings  and  their  faith  in  human 
nature.  All  they  require  is  kind  and  loving  care,  and 
tenderness  and  proper  ministration  to  bring  them  back  to 


254  THE  FOG 

normal.  In  so  far  as  that  is  'reform',  I  believe  it  possible 
and  admirable  and  well  worth  the  effort.  But  taking  a  man 
who  has  never  had  a  care  or  worry  and  whose  career  has 
been  one  long  fling  in  self-indulgence,  and  endeavoring  to 
makes  a  man  of  him  —  the  woman  who  will  waste  her  time 
trying  it  displays  evidences  of  imbecility." 

"Then  I  take  it  —  there's  no  hope  —  for  Gordon  ?" 

"I  haven't  said  so.  I've  said  that  Gordon,  or  any  man 
who  wants  my  respect  and  ministration,  must  prove  to  me 
first  that,  in  popular  language,  he's  'got  the  stuff  in  him.' 
I'll  say  this  much :  When  your  son  Gordon  has  proved  to 
me  he's  sincerely  penitent  and  made  of  the  material  that 
perhaps  hasn't  had  a  fair  chance  to  develop,  he  stands  as 
good  a  chance  to  gain  my  favor  as  any  man.  That's  all 
the  'encouragement'  I  can  give.  Just  now  I've  too  much 
to  occupy  my  time  to  think  of  matrimony,  anyway.  It 
doesn't  enter  into  my  plans.  I'm  studying  to  be  a  physi 
cian." 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know!  Very  commendable.  I  wish  Gordon 
had  some  interest  in  life  —  some " 

"I'll  even  go  further,  Mr.  Ruggles.  I'll  say  that  all  the 
vulgarity  and  insult  which  I've  suffered  consistently  from 
your  son  will  not  handicap  him  if  he  turns  over  a  new 
leaf  and  shows  he's  really  made  of  stuff  worth  while.  In 
fact,  I'd  be  inclined  to  count  it  in  his  favor,  strange  as  it 
may  sound.  For  it  will  be  a  criterion  of  what  he  has  over 
come." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Amos.    "Thank  you  very  much !" 


IV 

All  the  week  that  call  of  Gordon's  father  perturbed 
Madelaine.  Or  rather,  it  accentuated  emotions  which  the 
nature  of  her  activities  and  the  demands  upon  her  time  were 
forcibly  keeping  latent. 

She  had  reached  twenty-four  and  was  still  heart-free. 
Yet  there  were  times  when  she  distrusted  herself.  She 
wanted  to  shed  tears  without  exactly  knowing  why.  She 
felt  herself  groping  out  for  a  Something  she  could  not  give 
a  name?  Was  it  love?  It  troubled  her. 

She  had  met  men,  all  types  and  varieties  and  tempera- 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  255 

ments.  She  had  golfed  with  them,  danced  with  them, 
ridden  with  them,  crossed  social  swords  with  them  at  house 
parties  and  on  yacht  cruises.  She  had  looked  at  them 
frankly  and  fearlessly;  assayed  them;  asked  herself  with 
a  cold  brain  if  she  could  think  of  herself  as  wife  to  any 
of  them,  —  with  all  which  wifehood,  to  a  girl  like  herself, 
implied.  The  answer  had  always  been  negative,  from  re 
pulsion  or  indifference.  She  mothered  them,  she  sister ed 
them,  she  heard  their  troubles,  she  even  allowed  a  few  of 
the  elect  to  flirt  with  her,  —  in  a  harmless,  blue-blooded  way. 
But  as  for  meeting  a  man  in  whose  personality  she  could 
abandon  herself,  whom  she  could  tolerate  beside  her 
always,  in  every  situation  that  life  might  hold,  most  of 
all  in  its  great  privacies,  there  had  never  been  such  a  man. 
She  wondered  at  times  if  there  would  be. 

The  young  architect  had  gone  to  the  Argentine.  For  a 
time  he  had  corresponded  with  her.  She  felt  a  queer  little 
pang  and  breathed  a  sigh  when  news  came  back  one  autumn 
of  his  marriage  to  the  daughter  of  an  American  consul. 
There  had  been  a  young  artist  whom  she  had  met  in  Paris. 
He  had  grasped  her  roughly  in  his  arms  one  night  and 
covered  her  face  and  throat  with  kisses.  Strange  to  relate, 
she  had  felt  neither  insult  nor  repulsion.  But  she  had  dis 
covered  him  a  week  later  doing  the  same  with  another 
woman.  She  had  laughed  a  queer  little  laugh  and  con 
sidered  herself  the  butt  of  a  rather  good  jest. 

She  and  her  mother  had  completed  their  world  trip; 
had  come  back  across  America;  and  she  had  begun  her 
college  studies.  She  had  counseled  other  girl's  love  affairs. 
She  had  been  bridesmaid  at  many  weddings.  She  had 
beheld  love  in  all  its  wealth  of  tenderness  and  idealism; 
and  she  had  seen  it  defiled  and  degraded  to  brutish  lust. 
She  knew  what  love  could  do,  that  it  was  very  beautiful 
and  much  to  be  desired.  Yet  she  had  a  feeling  that  when 
she  loved,  it  would  be  with  a  force  and  passion  that  would 
melt  down  the  world  —  her  world  —  and  recast  it.  She  must 
proceed  carefully  and  tolerate  no  blunders. 

The  name  "Old  Mother  Hubbard"  still  clung  to  her. 
She  could  not  always  approach  her  medical  studies  in  that 
cold,  impersonal  way  she  felt  was  necessary  for  professional 
success.  Human  beings  were  always  human  beings,  never 
biological  cases  for  the  application  of  abstract  logic  or  the 


256  THE  FOG 

working  out  of  a  theorem.  At  times  she  wondered  if  shi 
were  constituted  to  make  a  success  of  medicine,  particu 
larly  obstetrics.  She  almost  believed  a  course  in  nursing 
would  have  supplied  that  hunger  in  her  heart  to  alleviate 
suffering.  But  there  were  so  many  nurses  —  the  life  was 
at  times  so  proscribed  and  mechanical 

It  was  queer  that  Amos  Ruggles  had  chosen  that  par 
ticular  time  to  make  his  call.  Because  a  month  before, 
her  roommate  of  the  past  year  had  suddenly  abandoned  her 
studies  to  become  a  wife,  had  written  back  from  Japan 
how  much  her  life  had  been  changed  and  enriched,  con 
tending  that  the  course  which  Madelaine  had  elected  was 
unnatural  and  would  never  wholly  bring  her  Woman  Hap 
piness.  That  hurt  most  of  all.  Because  of  late  Madelaine 
had  begun  to  doubt  it  herself.  And  yet,  marrying  Gordon ! 
Anybody  but  Gordon! 

The  fellow  had  a  dread  influence  over  her.  She  could 
not  describe  it.  It  was  cruelly  mesmeric.  It  seemed  to 
have  persisted,  in  spite  of  all  the  man's  behavior,  since  the 
first  day  she  had  beheld  his  hot 'young  gaze  upon  her. 
He  had  challenged  her  foster-mother  that  in  the  end  he 
would  win  her,  by  fair  means  or  foul.  Consistently  through 
the  past  decade  he  had  kept  in  touch  with  her.  Something 
in  his  eyes  declared,  "Fight  as  much  as  you  wish,  my  pretty 
lady ;  I'll  have  my  way  in  the  end."  Now  it  was  plain  that 
Gordon  wanted  her,  as  a  man ;  he  must  have  conveyed  that 
desire  to  his  family  or  Amos  never  would  have  made  his 
call.  If  Gordon  persisted  long  enough,  would  he  break 
through  her  defenses  and  bear  her  away  in  spite  of  herself? 
No,  no,  no! 

Romance!    What  was  romance? 

The  girl  went  back  to  her  study  table  and  tried  to  continue 
her  thesis.  It  was  banal  and  lifeless  and  drab. 

Romance !    What  was  romance ! 

She  threw  down  her  fountain  pen  and  cupped  her  cheeks 
with  her  hands. 

Straight  before  her  on  the  wall  was  a  long,  narrow, 
copper-hued  frame.  Inside  it,  a  liberal  expanse  of  brown 
mapping.  In  the  center  of  the  mapping  was  a  faded  strip  of 
news-print. 

Why  was  she  saving  that  poem?  Who  was  Nathaniel 
Forge  and  why  should  he  write  such  a  poem? 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  257 

Unconsciously  she  read  over  the  lines  again.  And  when 
she  had  come  to  the  name  signed  at  the  bottom,  Madelaine 
Theddon  did  a  strange  thing,  for  Madelaine  Theddon. 
That  wonder  who  Nathaniel  Forge  might  be,  and  why  he 
should  have  written  such  a  poem,  started  her  thoughts 
romancing.  That  romancing  crystallized  in  a  concrete  de 
cision.  What  harm  could  there  be  in  making  a  trip  up  to 
this  Paris,  Vermont,  in  the  week  of  vacation  beginning 
Monday,  and  learning  what  she  might  of  Nathaniel  Forge 
—  even  looking  into  his  face,  perhaps  —  provided  she  did  not 
declare  her  identity  or  divulge  her  errand? 

The  more  she  thought  about  it,  the  more  the  novelty 
of  the  proposal  grew  upon  her.  She  had  saved  that  poem 
so  long,  it  had  meant  so  much,  that  she  wanted  that  won 
derment  answered. 

Could  it  be  possible  that  Kismet  had  ordained  that  the 
poem  purposely  should  find  its  way  into  her  life  for  a 
beautiful  purpose?  She  would  see.  Why  not? 

She  put  away  her  ponderous  books  with  their  long,  itali 
cized  words  and  abstruse  meanings.  She  would  go  to  Paris, 
Vermont,  that  following  Monday,  telling  no  one. 


Madelaine  arrived  in  our  town  at  four  o'clock  of  a  drab, 
depressing  winter's  afternoon.  The  weather  was  treacher 
ously  balmy.  The  snow  was  thin,  hard-packed  and  dirty. 
Paris  in  no  other  season  of  year  looked  less  attractive  or 
more  mediocre.  She  alighted  from  the  Junction  train  and 
walked  down  the  length  of  the  station  platform  with  a 
little  dread.  Did  she  want  to  know  about  Nathaniel  Forge, 
after  all?  Did  she  really  want  to  see  him?  Suppose  he 
was  hopeless,  that  the  poem  had  simply  been  a  trick  of 
circumstance  and  coincidence?  Would  it  not  be  better 
to  let  him  remain  ever  as  she  had  idealized  him,  whoever 
and  whatever  he  was,  perhaps  the  One-Who-Might-Have- 
Been.  Then  she  condemned  herself  for  an  emotional,  senti 
mental  little  weakling,  afraid  to  face  facts.  She  wandered 
up  Depot  Street  to  East  Main,  carrying  a  light  traveling 
bag,  looking  for  the  hotel. 

In  her  trim  tailored   suit  of  green   worsted  and   small 


258  THE  FOG 

mannish  hat,  she  resembled  a  hundred  traveling  sales 
women  or  demonstration  women  of  the  better  class.  Half 
a  dozen  drummers  so  "placed"  her  before  she  had  been  in 
the  Whitney  House  ten  minutes.  With  a  room  secured,  she 
started  out  to  see  the  town. 

The  town!  She  wandered  up  one  side  of  Main  Street 
and  down  the  other.  She  saw  a  jumble  of  drab,  discour 
aged,  discordant,  chaotic  blocks  and  buildings  such  as 
border  Main  Street  in  every  town  of  ten  thousand  inhabi 
tants  from  the  Presidio  to  Plymouth  Rock.  Its  people 
were  a  painfully  self-conscious,  muddy-shoed  procession 
of  everybody  not  mentioned  in  Who's  Who  and  never 
likely  to  be  mentioned  in  Who's  Who.  The  sky  was 
smothered  with  depressing  mist.  It  shut  out  the  distant 
mountain  sky  line.  The  sordidness  and  commonness  of  the 
community  grated  —  horribly. 

A  single-track  car  line  wound  through  Main  Street,  not 
much  caring  whether  cars  went  over  it  or  not.  The  People's 
National  Bank,  the  Bishop  Jewelry  with  the  sidewalk  clock 
that  was  never  correct,  Joe  Service's  News  Room,  Edwards 
Brothers'  Cigar  Store,  The  Red  Front  Grocery,  the 
Michalman  Misses-and-Ladies-Suits,  the  Bon  Ton  Millinery, 
the  Woolworth  Five-and-Ten,  the  Daily  Telegraph  office 
with  bulletins  about  the  latest  developments  on  the  Somme, 
the  Masonic  Temple,  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Williams  Clothing 
Emporium,  —  a  thousand  towns  had  them  and  would  always 
have  them  until  America  ceased  to  be.  She  was  glad  she 
possessed  a  sense  of  humor.  And  yet  what  a  dispirited, 
uninteresting,  plodding  sort  of  existence.  The  plainness 
and  crudity  of  everything  bothered  her.  It  was  -piteous. 

She  saw  a  greasy  barber  shop  next  door  to  the  filite 
Lunch  Room  with  a  fly-speckled  sign  in  the  window  of  the 
latter:  "Eat  Here  or  We  Both  Starve."  She  caught 
glimpses  of  rakishly  barbered  heads  moving  about  pool 
tables  behind  a  foggy  window  filled  with  wrestling-match 
placards  and  announcements  of  dance  carnivals.  A  basket 
of  eggs  marked  "Fresh  at  ijc"  was  set  down  close  to  the 
glass  in  the  window  of  the  Metropolitan  Drug  Store.  A 
small  boy  with  an  enormous  fur  cap  clanked  the  iron  tie 
ring  in  front  of  a  gift  shop  with  a  torn  awning.  A  washed- 
out  woman  in  a  hideous  hat  waited  in  a  sleigh  while  her 
husband  smoked  a  five-cent  cigar  and  then  came  to  untie 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  259 

the  huge-rumped  horse  with  his  big  fingers  and  take  his 
place  beside  her  beneath  a  ponderous  buffalo  robe.  A  long 
curb-line  of  carefully  groomed  young  bucks  with  no  place 
to  go  but  home  assayed  her  figure  as  she  passed  in  front 
of  the  Olympic  Movie  and  commented  about  her  ankles. 

She  stopped  in  front  of  the  hotel  again  and  tried  to 
decide  what  one  thing  was  the  keynote  to  the  place  and  its 
people.  She  finally  decided  it  must  be  the  dilapidated  Ford 
truck  with  a  torn  and  dirty  horse  blanket  thrown  over  its 
radiator.  The  truck  was  left,  headed  into  the  curb  in  a 
hay-strewn  gutter,  in  front  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Tea 
Store.  A  flock  of  pigeons  about  it  were  being  extremely 
bothered  by  the  sidewalk  traffic. 

Madelaine  was  neither  prig  nor  snob.  Yet  she  won 
dered  how  people  could  possibly  pass  all  their  lives  in  such 
a  place.  Especially  she  pitied  the  women.  She  went  inside 
the  hotel  at  last  and  found  that  the  "Ladies'  Parlor"  over 
looked  the  street.  Before  she  made  any  inquiries  as  to 
Nathan,  she  sank  into  one  of  the  rockers.  As  she  medi 
tated,  with  a  little  ache  of  excitement  in  her  heart,  other 
scenes  came  to  her,  —  scenes  she  unconsciously  compared 
with  the  lot  of  the  town's  women  here.  The  first  lamps 
of  evening  blinked  on  and  found  her  still  meditating. 

The  shape  of  a  hansom  clopping  through  the  London 
fog;  a  careless  laugh  floating  back  on  a  French  boulevard 
in  the  hush  of  a  soft,  spring  night;  evening  on  the  Grand 
Canal  with  the  eternal  slap,  slap,  slap  of  the  water  and  the 
memory  of  a  weird  song  mixed  with  the  musty  decay  of  old 
palaces ;  blue-toned  Greece  where  the  landscapes  were  as 
clear  and  sharp  as  far-flung  cameos  of  mountain  size;  the 
heat-soaked  Holy  Land;  Sunday  morning  from  the  Mount 
of  Olives ;  breakfast  in  a  Persian  camp ;  noon  on  a  Chinese 
river;  twilight  and  a  Japanese  moon  riding  mystic  above 
eucalyptus  trees,  —  what  did  the  women  of  such  a  land 
locked  little  town  know  of  the  world's  beauties  and  its  far 
places?  Or  the  men  either?  The  men!  Who  was 
Nathaniel  Forge  and  why  should  he  have  written  such 
a  poem?  She  wondered  if  she  was  beginning  to  understand. 

She  had  no  appetite  for  dinner  —  they  called  it  supper 
up  here,  she  supposed  —  at  least  in  the  dining  room  where 
all  the  first  arrivals  would  leer  at  her.  She  went  back  down 
to  the  lobby  and  approached  Pat  Whitney,  the  proprietor. 


260  THE  FOG 

"I  wonder  if  you  could  assist  me,"  she  said,  "in  finding 
a  certain  type  of  person  in  this  town  for  whom  I'm 
looking." 

Pat  did  not  remove  his  two-inch  toothpick.  He  did  try 
to  button  his  vest. 

"Shoot,  lady !"  he  answered. 

Madelaine  smiled  to  herself,  then  "shot." 

"I'd  like  to  be  directed  to  some  elderly  man  or  woman 
who  has  lived  a  long  time  here  and  is  acquainted  with 
most  of  the  town's  people.  Especially  those  who  lived  here 
about  ten  years  ago.  I'm  hunting  a  friend.  Yet  I  don't 
want  my  business  made  public.  I'd  prefer  some  elderly, 
accommodating  man " 

"That's  a  cinch!"  returned  Pat.  "Skin  around  the 
corner  and  see  Uncle  Joe  Fodder." 

"Uncle  Joe  Fodder?" 

"Yeah;  he  runs  the  livery  stable.  He  knows  everybody 
from  way  back,  who  their  grandmothers  was  and  what  the 
family  et  for  supper  the  night  they  was  born." 

"That's  very  good  of  you,"  returned  Madelaine.  And 
she  thanked  him. 

"I'm  all  yours,  Missie,"  was  Pat's  rejoinder.  He  meant 
no  offense.  He  dealt  so  with  all  the  "lady  drummers". 

Madelaine  picked  her  way  into  the  puddle-dotted,  straw- 
strewn  livery  yard.  A  single  light  burned  over  the  big 
stable  door.  Another  shone  through  the  murky  window- 
panes  of  a  tiny  office  at  the  left. 

Three  men  were  in  that  office  with  a  kindly  old  fellow 
who  looked  exactly  as  William  Cullen  Bryant  might  have 
looked  if  William  Cullen  Bryant  had  conducted  a  livery 
stable  in  one  Vermont  community  for  half  a  century.  He 
wore  a  blue  gingham  shirt,  patched  trousers  and  soiled 
suspenders.  But  Madelaine  liked  his  eyes. 

"Mr.  Fodder?"  the  girl  asked. 

Three  jaws  lowered.  Three  pairs  of  eyes  stared.  Three 
pairs  of  front  chair  legs  clumped  to  the  floor.  Taking  their 
cue,  three  specimens  of  bewhiskered  humanity  "hoofed 
along  'bout  their  business." 

"Mr.  Whitney  at  the  hotel  sent  me  to  you,"  Madelaine 
declared  when  they  were  alone  and  the  soft-eyed  old 
philosopher  had  dusted  a  chair  and  pushed  the  "spit-box" 
from  sight.  "He  said  you  were  well  acquainted  in  Paris 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  261 

and  could  assist  me  in  getting  information  about  a  particular 
person  who  may,  or  may  not,  live  here  at  present.  My 
name  is  Rowland  —  Allegra  Rowland  —  and  I  come  from 
Springfield,  Mass.  But  my  visit  here  and  my  business 
must  remain  unknown.  I'd  like  you  to  assure  me  you'll 
keep  it  confidential  before  I  go  further." 

The  old  man  stroked  his  whiskers  gently  and  his  blue  eyes 
smiled. 

"Pat  claimed  I  knowed  everybody,  did  he  ?  Wai,  wal ! 
He  does  manage  to  tell  the  truth  once  in  a  dog's  age.  What 
is  it  you  want  to  know,  daughter?" 

"It's  about  a  man  named  Forge.  Has  such  a  man  ever 
lived  here  in  Paris?" 

Madelaine  caught  the  startled  expression  which  for  a 
moment  chilled  the  kindly  laughter  in  those  lackluster  eyes. 

"Which  Forge,  daughter?   Nat  or  the  old  man?" 

"There  are  two,  then?" 

"Nat  and  Johnathan.  Nat's  the  boy.  Johnathan's  the 
dad.  Which  you  want  to  know  about?" 

"The  one  called  Nathaniel.  He  —  he  —  several  years  ago 
—  he  —  wrote  a  poem.  It  interested  me  greatly.  So  much 
so  I  thought  if  I  ever  happened  up  this  way,  I'd  stop  and 
compliment  the  poet." 

"Pshaw,  now  !   That's  too  bad !" 

"Why  is  it  too  bad?" 

The  expression  of  trouble  deepened  on  the  old  hostler's 
face. 

"It's  been  quite  a  spell  since  Nat  writ  poetry.  His  dad 
sort  o'  discouraged  it.  Nat  give  it  up." 

"He's  a  young  man,  then?"  Why  did  the  girl's  heart 
leap? 

"Let's  see,  Nat  was  ten  or  so  when  he  come  to  Paris  from 
over  Foxboro  way.  That  was  in  ninety-nine.  Now  it's 
nineteen-fifteen.  That'd  make  Natie  'bout  twenty-six  at 
present,  wouldn't  it?  —  yaas,  twenty-six!" 

"He's  still  living  here,  then?" 

"Yaas  —  he's  still  livin'  here.  Just  now,  we're  sort  o' 
sorry  to  say,  he's  livin'  in  jail." 

"In  —  fail!" 

It  was  a  diaphragm  blow.  Madelaine  could  hear,  see, 
feel,  but  she  could  not  move.  "Why  is  he  in  jail  ?"  she  asked 
faintly. 


262  THE  FOG 

"It's  a  long  story,  ma'am.  'Tain't  exactly  a  pleasant  one. 
You  see,  Nat  come  down  here  from  Foxboro  and  his  old 
man  started  a  shoe  place  over  next  to  the  Red  Front  Gro 
cery.  Him  and  his  woman  always  had  trouble  and  I  guess 
'twa  sort  o'  hell  for  the  Forge  kids.  Nat  went  to  school 
here  a  piece,  and  then  was  pulled  out  and  set  to  work  for 
Gridley  to  the  tannery.  Old  Cal  took  pity  on  him,  the  boy 
bein'  a  good  sort  o'  kid,  and  put  him  in  the  office.  Nat  writ 
poems  just  after  leavin'  school.  They  tickled  old  Gridley. 
He  got  Hod  to  print  'em  in  the  Telegraph." 

"Gridley?  Why,  I  know  a  girl  named  Gridley!  And  she 
came  from  up  around  here,  too.  She  went  to  school  with 
me  at  Mount  Hadley." 

"That's  the  one!  Bernice!  Went  abroad  for  a  spell, 
didn't  she?  Then  married  a  millionaire  feller  from  some 
where  out  Chicawgie?" 

"Yes,"  said  Madelaine  faintly.  "Please  go  on!  It  was 
her  father,  then.  And  what  about  Nathaniel?" 

"Well,  Johnathan  got  sick  o'  cobblin'  folkses'  shoes.  Had 
a  chance  to  buy  Dink  Campbell's  box-shop.  Didn't  do  very 
well  till  young  Nat  got  stuck  on  a  girl  from  A-higher.  Com 
menced  workin'  like  the  devil  then,  Nat  did,  to  get  a  stake 
so's  he  could  marry  her.  Caleb  coached  him,  I  guess.  Least 
wise  the  town  says  so,  and  Cal  ain't  never  denied  it.  That 
was  'fore  his  woman,  the  Duchess,  died,  and  Cal  started 
travelin'.  Anyhow,  Nat  worked  like  sixty  down  to  the  box- 
shop  and  planned  when  he  was  twenty-one  he'd  marry  the 
kid  from  A-higher.  It  was  sort  o'  too  bad.  She  give  him 
the  Grand  Bounce,  married  another  feller.  Pore  Natie  got 
it  square  between  the  eyes  the  night  he  turned  twenty-one. 
He  was  plannin'  on  marryin'  her  the  comin'  Christmas. 
Rotten  deal!  Hurt  him  awful!" 

'Madelaine's  throat  was  dry.    She  nodded. 

"Care  if  I  smoke,  daughter?"  the  old  man  asked. 

"Please  do,"  begged  the  girl.  He  was  that  type  of  pic 
turesque  old  fellow  who  looks  at  a  loss  without  a  corncob 
pipe.  Uncle  Joe  pulled  a  package  of  black  shag  from  his 
hip,  took  his  cob  from  off  his  desk  and  for  several  moments 
meditated  as  he  applied  the  shag  to  the  bowl  and  ramped  it 
hard  with  a  gnarled  forefinger. 

"  'Course,"  he  went  on,  as  the  match  flame  leaped  several 
times  upon  being  applied  to  the  top  of  the  pipe,  "it's  only 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  263 

natcheral  that  Natie  should  'a'  been  sort  of  upset  and  all. 
Still,  we  didn't  calculate  he'd  turn  so  quick  and  crazy-like, 
and  pull  off  the  stunt  he  did.  I  s'pose  he  was  just  home 
sick  for  a  woman,  his  Ma  being  pretty  much  a  jawbones 
and  the  home  life  at  sixes  and  sevens.  Anyhow,  that  very 
night  when  Natie  learned  the  other  girl  had  married  an 
other  feller,  he  goes  plumb  to  work  and  marries  'Cock-eye' 
Richards'  eldest  girl,  Milly  —  the  dumpy  one  that  was  always 
sloppy  'bout  her  shoes." 

"Married !     He's  —  married  —  then  ?" 

"Oh,  yaas,  he's  married.  Got  a  kid  —  girl  kid !  Been  mar 
ried  —  let's  see  —  been  married  better'n  five  year  now.  Kid's 
pretty  good  size.  Goes  to  school,  I  think." 

"Go  on,"  said  the  girl  listlessly.  "You  said  he  was  in 
jail." 

"Yaas  —  box-shop's  busted  —  high,  wide  and  handsome." 

"Just  how  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Well,  Nat  got  going  pretty  good  there,  for  a  piece.  He 
was  working  for  a  stake  to  marry  the  A-higher  girl  like  I 
said,  and  when  a  kid's  got  his  back  up  to  do  something  big 
for  a  girl,  there's  times  when  a  team  o'  hosses  can't  hold 
him.  He  was  keen  enough,  too,  for  a  kid.  He'd  probably 
come  out  all  right  if  he  hadn't  been  sidetracked  by  marryin' 
that  dumpy  Richards  thing.  Anyhow,  he'd  had  the  business 
incorporated  and  hittin'  the  high  spots  and  it  was  making  so 
much  money  for  a  spell  that  lots  o'  folks  hereabouts  bought 
stock.  Bought  some  myself!  But  it  reached  its  peak  the 
first  year  o'  Nat's  marriage.  Guess  the  boy  lost  heart.  Then 
again,  his  old  man  give  him  trouble.  What  John  didn't 
know  about  business,  any  kind  of  business,  would  fill  a 
dam'  big  book.  So  they  pulled  and  they  hauled  and  they 
sawed,  and  with  a  baby  comin',  the  boy  couldn't  very  well 
break  away.  Then  him  and  Milly  didn't  get  along  —  him 
bein'  a  poet  and  she  bein'  a  cow.  Taken  altogether,  the 
box-works  commenced  to  slide." 

"And  now  it's  reached  bankruptcy  ?" 

'  'T wouldn't  have  gone  into  bankruptcy  if  old  John  hadn't 
had  one  last  walloper  of  a  fight  with  his  woman,  and  one 
mornin'  showed  up  missin'.  The  girl  Edith  —  that's  Nat's 
sister  —  she  holds  out  for  marryin'  a  feller  by  the  name  o' 
Dubois  —  French  feller  from  Montreal.  Folks  objected, 
her  folks.  They  objected  so  much  she  ran  off  with  him  one 


264  THE  FOG 

night  and  the  old  man  couldn't  have  the  marriage  busted 
'cause  there  was  a  fambly  comin'.  John's  woman  got  scrap- 
pin'  and  blamin'  him  for  makin'  a  mess  o'  things  generally 
and  so,  well  —  last  week  he  simply  pulled  his  stakes  and 
blowed." 

"But  why  should  they  put  the  son  in  jail?" 

"Wai,  seems  Johnathan  got  the  idea  from  somewheres 
that  because  he  was  president  and  had  started  the  business, 
it  belonged  to  him,  'specially  the  funds.  He  forgot  there 
was  stockholders  been  interested.  He  gets  peeved  and  draws 
out  a  rotten  lot  o'  the  company's  workin'  capital.  Cripples 
it  so  it  can't  pay  its  bills.  He  takes  it  with  him,  and  God 
knows  where  he's  gone.  The  bank  folks  here  certainly'd 
like  to.  The  stockholders  get  together  and  bein'  pretty  hot 
under  the  collar  and  all,  they  thinks  Nat  might  blow  too, 
and  they  claps  him  in  the  hoosegow.  The  bank  puts  fig- 
gerers  ont'  the  books  and  they  found  the  shop's  been  losing 
money  for  most  three  years  —  just  eatin'  into  its  capital  and 
eatin'  and  eatin'.  John's  skippin'  out  sorter  pulled  down  the 
temple.  The  boy's  helpless,  'cause  they  set  his  bail  so  high 
there  won't  nobody  go  it,  though  they  do  say  old  Caleb 
in  California,  or  somewheres,  has  wired  he'd  come  back  and 
lend  a  hand  to  straighten  things  out.  But  there  ain't  much 
hope  o'  re-openin'  the  business.  Won't  pay  fifteen  cents  on 
the  dollar.  Feel  like  a  fool  about  it  myself.  Had  in  fifty 
dollars." 

"And  how  does  his  mother  and  wife  take  it?"  Madelaine 
asked.  Not  that  she  particularly  cared,  but  she  had  to  say 
something. 

"Oh,  John's  woman's  mad  at  the  boy ;  she  and  Milly  don't 
get  along.  Then  agin,  Nat  got  into  the  mess  by  bein'  in 
business  with  his  father  —  and  Anna  always  did  hate  his 
father.  She  owns  the  Longstreet  property  up  on  Vermont 
Avenue  —  leastwise  it  was  put  in  her  name  a  while  back  and 
the  courts  can't  get  it.  She  could  go  Nat's  bail  if  she 
would.  But  she  won't.  She  says  it's  'good  enough  for  him.' 
Let  him  rot  in  jail  a  piece  and  think  it  over.  Good  revenge 
on  John,  Nat  bein'  his  son.  It's  makin'  a  heap  o'  talk  'round 
the  village.  Milly  —  Gawd,  she  ain't  got  brains  enough  to 
boil  water;  all  she  can  do  is  wring  her  hands  and  weep. 
Folks  say  a  chap  named  Si  Plumb  is  shinin'  around  her  — 
used  to  be  in  love  with  her  before  she  married  Nat.  But 


TOO  EASY  MONEY  265 

I'm  thinkin*  that's  talk.  No,  the  boy  ain't  got  much  help 
from  his  women  folks.  Never  did  have,  for  that  matter. 
Sad  case,  sad  case !" 

"What  became  of  the  sister?" 

"She's  off  up  to  Montreal.  Dubois  got  a  job  up  there  in  a 
paper  mill.  Ordinary  sort  o'  feller  —  makes  two-seventy-five 
a  day,  maybe." 

Old  Fodder  puffed  on  his  pipe  for  a  time.  Madelaine 
could  hear  his  horses  munching  their  evening  oats  out  in 
the  low-studded  stable.  Finally  she  drew  a  deep  sigh. 

"Then  I  guess  it  would  be  somewhat  embarrassing  for  me 
to  congratulate  him  on  his  poetry  just  now,  wouldn't  it? 
Satisfy  a  woman's  curiosity,  Mr.  Fodder.  What  sort  of 
looking  man  is  he  ?  I've  drawn  a  picture  of  him  from  his 
poem  and  I'd  like  to  know  how  far  I'm  correct." 

"Fair-lookin'  chap!"  Uncle  Joe  poised  his  shining  pipe- 
stem  in  mid-air.  "Had  a  fight  with  this  Plumb  who  they  sez 
is  sashayin'  round  his  wife,  just  now  —  long  time  ago.  Got 
a  busted  ear.  Used  to  have  fifty  million  freckles  but  them 
sort  o'  faded  out.  Been  goin'  about  the  village  sort  o'  seedy- 
lookin'  lately  —  guess  his  woman  spent  a  pile,  thinkin'  he  had 
gobs  o'  money.  Got_fair  eyes,  but  sort  o'  hounded-lookin'. 
Yes,  fair  sort  o'  feller  but  kinda  ordinary.  Feel  sorry  for 
him  myself." 

Madelaine  laughed.  She  affected  an  indifference  she  did 
not  feel. 

"I'm  awfully  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Fodder.  This  informa 
tion  has  forestalled  an  awkward  situation.  And  you'll  for 
get  I  came  to  see  you,  won't  you?" 

"Sartin!    Sartin !    Stoppin' in  the  place  long?" 

"No,  I'm  going  down-country  to-night." 

"Well,  glad  to  metcher.  Ever  stoppin'  here  again,  look 
me  up.  Want  me  to  say  anythin'  to  Nat  'bout  you  callin', 
if  he  wins  out  all  right?" 

"No,  no!  It  was  only  idle  curiosity.  He  doesn't  know 
me  anyway  and  never  will." 

"Well,  good  night.  And  watch  the  ice  in  the  yard.  'Mare 
broke  a  leg  there  Thursday.  Dam'  nice  mare,  too.  Had  to 
be  shot.  Got  twelve  dollars  for  her  hide.  Good  night." 

Madelaine  went  out  again  to  Main  Street.  She  strolled 
about  for  a  time  in  thought.  Her  walk  brought  her  in  front 
of  the  Court  House.  Nathaniel  Forge,  the  man  who  had 


266  THE  FOG 

written  the  little  poem  that  had  meant  much  in  her  life,  was 
down  in  a  basement  cell  at  that  moment  —  two  hundred  feet 
away  —  ten  thousand  miles. 

She  entered  the  hotel  and  found  she  still  had  no  appetite 
for  supper.  She  asked  what  time  she  could  catch  a  train 
back  to  the  Junction. 

"Find  yer  man  ?"  demanded  Pat  Whitney. 

"Oh,  yes,"  Madelaine  answered  cheerily  enough.  "The 
person  I  hoped  to  find  isn't  here  any  longer." 


VI 

Twenty-four  hours  later  she  stood  in  her  apartment  and 
took  down  the  copper  frame  from  the  wall. 

"Married !  —  A  wife  and  little  girl !  —  In  jail!  And  all  the 
time  I  might  have  asked  Bernice !  Oh,  well !" 

She  laughed  and  called  herself  a  silly  fool.  She  ripped  off 
the  backboard  of  the  copper  frame  and  extracted  the  poem. 
She  found  a  photograph  of  her  mother  and  cut  it  to  fit.  The 
frame  restored,  she  picked  up  the  mapping  with  the  slip  of 
news-print  pasted  thereon.  She  started  to  tear  it.  She 
did  tear  it  once  across.  She  had  started  another  tear  when 
she  stopped.  She  smoothed  the  torn  pieces  out.  She  found 
an  envelope  that  would  hold  them  and  tucked  it  away  in  a 
bottom  drawer. 

"Oh,  why  did  I  go?"  she  cried,  as  she  turned  once  again 
to  her  work.  "I  shot  my  Bird  of  Paradise !" 

She  fell  to  thinking,  —  dry-throated,  hard-eyed.  So  Gor 
don  Ruggles  wanted  to  marry  her,  did  he?  The  rotter! 

Romance!    What  was  Romance? 


CHAPTER  II 

GROPING   TERRIBLY 


Into  the  town  lock-up  came  Caleb  Gridley.  And  Caleb 
Gridley  was  one  mad  man. 

It  was  four-thirty  of  a  gray  afternoon  in  March.  The 
local  police  force  tilted  back  in  its  chair  with  its  feet  on  its 
desk  and  perused  the  day's  issue  of  the  Telegraph  with  the 
official  corncob  of  the  department  exquisitely  odoriferous 
and  the  atmosphere  of  headquarters  suggesting  gas  masks, 
cheese  knives  and  quickly  lowered  windows. 

"So  this  is  how  you  earn  taxpayers'  money !"  snarled  the 
tanner.  "Where's  young  Forge?" 

The  police  force  lowered  its  paper  and  blinked  at  old 
Caleb  in  stupefaction.  The  last  known  address  of  the  tan 
ner  had  been  Los,  Angeles. 

" Where'd  you  come  from  now  ?"  it  demanded  weakly. 

"None  o'  your  damn  business  where  I  .come  from  now. 
What's  the  idea  o'  jailin'  an  innocent  youngster  like  Natie 
Forge  for  his  old  man's  cussedness  ?  That's  what  I  wanner 
know  and  I'm  gonna  find  out.  Somebody's  goin'  to  answer 
for  this  —  and  they're  goin'  to  answer  to  me !" 

The  police  force  gradually  recovered  from  this  astonish 
ing  levitation  of  the  Gridley  corpus  across  three  thousand 
continental  miles.  It  became  human  and  a  servant  of  the 
public,  meaning  Caleb. 

"You  needn't  blame  me.  I  ain't  got  nothin'  against  him. 
All  I  do  is  carry  out  the  law." 

"Well,  carry  it  out  now  and  never  bring  it  back.  Where's 
the  boy  ?  Got  him  here  ?" 

"Sure  I  got  him  here.    Wanner  see  him?" 

"What  the  devil  do  you  think  I'm  here  for  —  to  gaze  at 
your  homely  mug,  maybe?" 

Gridley  followed  the  police  force  out  into  the  rear  corridor 


268  THE  FOG 

and  down  the  twin  rows  of  steel  cages  until  they  reached 
the  last  on  the  left.  A  drawn-faced  figure  looked  up  anx 
iously. 

"Got  visitors,  Nat,"  announced  the  department.  "Friend 
o'  yours  !  Gridley !" 

Caleb  walked  into  the  cell  —  as  big-bodied,  small-headed, 
beefy-jawed  as  ever  —  derby  on  the  back  of  his  head,  big 
hands  in  trousers  pockets,  fully  prepared  to  make  hamburg 
of  the  entire  penal  system  of  the  State  of  Vermont. 

"Well,  bub,"  roared  the  tanner,  "what  sort  o'  fumi-diddles 
is  this,  anyhow  ?" 

"Mr.  Gridley !"  gasped  the  young  prisoner.  Then  repeat 
ing  the  department's  question:  "Where'd  you  come  from 
now  ?" 

"California!  Got  a  wire  from  your  old-maid  school 
teacher  —  the  Hastings  female  —  one  that  learned  you  poetry 
writin',  remember?  Come  east  to  see  what  kind  o'  horse 
play  they're  puttin'  over  on  you,  anyhow."  To  the  depart 
ment  :  "Mike,  you  get  air  in  the  space  you're  now  occupyin' ! 
Me'n  Nat  may  wanner  discuss  poetry.  And  poetry's  some- 
thin'  just  natcherly  outter  your  class." 

The  boy  rose  unsteadily.  Inability  to  exercise  had  left 
his  muscles  flaccid. 

The  tanner  was  a  trifle  shocked  by  the  changed  appear 
ance  of  the  young  man's  face.  Every  spare  ounce  of  flesh 
had  disappeared.  The  skin  was  drawn  tightly  over  the 
bones.  Every  turn  of  the  jaw  and  depression  of  the  cheek 
was  sharply  defined.  Yet  for  all  its  leanness,  it  was  the 
countenance  of  a  young  man  grimly  determined  to  find  him 
self  ;  not  to  give  way  to  weakness  and  self-pity.  It  was 
growing  into  a  strong  face.  The  lips  came  together  with 
exquisite  precision/  The  muscles  on  each  side  the  mouth 
were  cable-heavy.  Only  the  eyes  showed  his  true  state  of 
mind.  They  were  hollow  and  hounded. 

"You  came  —  from  California  —  to  help  me?"  The  boy 
put  out  a  hand. 

Suddenly  Caleb  opened  his  gorilla  arms.  They  en 
circled  the  lean  young  torso,  pulled  Nathan  tightly  to  the 
tobacco-daubed  vest.  Those  huge  arms  squeezed  half  the 
life  out  of  him  and  then  began  belaboring  him  crazily  on 
the  back. 

"Ain't  got  no  license  to  go  hoofin'  all  over  the  dam'  planet 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  269 

when  I  might  better  be  seem'  to  things  right  here  in  Paris ! 
Bub !  Bub !  They  been  takin'  pounds  o'  flesh  away  from 
your  heart.  I  can  see  it  in  them  eyes !" 

"You  heard  how  I  landed  here?"  the  boy  asked  gravely, 
evenly,  a  moment  later,  when  Caleb  had  released  him.  Caleb 
had  to  release  him,  else  Nat  could  not  have  said  it. 

Caleb  did  something  to  his  nose  with  a  handkerchief. 
The  noise  of  it  suggested  he  would  blast  Nat  from  his  con 
finement  with  one  terrific  explosion. 

"Yeah !  Fodder  told  me,  comin'  up  on  the  'bus.  But  to 
hell  with  how  you  got  here !  Point  is,  how  we  goin'  to  get 
you  out." 

"Judge  Wright  set  my  bail  at  ten  thousand  dollars.  My 
old  chum  Bill  did  everything  short  of  hocking  his  interest 
in  the  Telegraph,  trying  to  raise  it.  Seventy-five  hundred 
in  cash-money  was  the  best  he  could  do.  So  I've  just  had 
to  wait  here  —  and  wait  and  wait  and  wait.  It's  been  hor 
rible.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I've  found  out  how  long 
an  hour  can  be  —  or  a  day  —  or  a  week.  That  terrible  help 
less  feeling  —  being  shut  up  like  an  animal  in  a  cage,  power 
less.  It's  done  for  me." 

"Naw  it  ain't  done  for  you!  You're  good  as  you  ever 
was,  and  a  darn  sight  better.  But  that's  neither  here  nor 
there  —  as  the  feller  says  when  he  was  chasin'  the  hen. 
Point  is,  you  gotta  get  out  where  you  can  do  some  fightin'. 
How  much'd  she  bust  for?  The  box-shop?" 

"Counting  liabilities  to  stockholders,  twenty-two  thou 
sand." 

"How  much  is  the  bank  in  for?" 

"About  twelve." 

"How  much'd  your  old  man  swipe?" 

"Close  to  ten." 

"B'damn,  we'll  fix  this  lock-up  business,  quick  enough! 
But  why  the  devil  didn't  your  Ma  come  forward  with  her 
house  ?" 

"She  said  it  was  all  she  had  to  show  for  a  life  of  hard 
work.  She  was  afraid  of  losing  it,"  responded  Nathan 
humorously. 

"But  it  was  only  leavin'  it  as  bail." 

"I  know.    She  doesn't  understand." 

"Does  she  think  more  o'  that  damn  property  than  she  does 
of  her  boy?" 


270  THE  FOG 

"Apparently !  No,  that's  unfair.  She  thinks  I  should  be 
punished  a  while  for  keeping  on  with  father.  She  wanted 
me  to  oust  him  a  long  time  ago.  But  I  couldn't,  even  if  I'd 
wanted.  He  had  control  of  the  stock.  I  can't  blame  her. 
It's  hard  to  blame  people  who  haven't  the  capacity  to  under 
stand." 

"Trouble  with  you,  young  feller,  you're  too  soft-hearted 
for  your  own  good.  You  need  to  cultivate  a  little  healthy 
selfishness.  Never  mind !  Maybe  if  you  was  selfish  so,  I 
wouldn't  love  your  dratted  young  hide  like  I  do — always 
goin'  and  landin'  in  scrapes.  Well,  just  thought  I'd  call  in 
on  my  way  to  give  Hentley  hell,  and  tell  you  I  was  here  on 
the  job.  You  wait  a  few  minutes  till  I've  fixed  this  bail 
stuff.  Then  we'll  go  out  somewheres  and  assault  food  and 
talk  it  over.  Down  to  the  box-shop,  maybe,  and  have  a 
look-see  round." 

"We  can't  go  down  there.  The  shop's  in  charge  of  the 
sheriff.  They  won't  let  us  in." 

"Won't  they,  though?  I'd  like  to  see  the  goofus-brained 
pie-eater  in  this  tank-town  as  would  stop  me.  I'd  pull  out 
his  nose  a  coupla  feet  and  tie  a  knot  in  it !" 


II 

It  was  after  ten  o'clock  when  Nathan  reached  his  home. 
He  had  eaten  with  Caleb  and  then  gone  to  the  box-shop. 
Milly  did  not  know  of  her  husband's  freedom  until  he  ad 
mitted  himself  into  their  cold  front  hall  and  opened  the 
sitting-room  door  beyond. 

"You !"  she  cried,  springing  up.  "Have  you  broke  jail, 
or  — what?" 

"Caleb  Gridley  came  back  from  California  this  afternoon. 
He  bailed  me.  You  needn't  worry,  Milly.  It's  coming  out 
all  right." 

"You  mean  the  shop's  goin'  to  start  again?" 

"It's  too  badly  smashed  for  that.  But  they  won't  blame 
me  —  I  mean  to  hold  me  responsible  for  anything  that 
father " 

"But  the  disgrace!  Oh,  my  Gawd!  Think  o'  what  this 
means  to  me!"  The  wife  turned  angrily.  "And  little 
Mary !"  she  snapped  over  her  shoulder. 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  271 

"I  couldn't  help  it,  Milly.  I  didn't  know  dad  was  going 
to  loot  the  business." 

"Seems  to  me  you  oughta  been  smart  enough  to  stop  it  — 
somehow.  I  used  to  think  you  was  awful  smart,  once.  But 
you  certainly  fooled  me,  Nat.  You  fooled  me  good." 

"Thanks!" 

"Don't  give  me  none  o'  your  cheap  lip !" 

Nathan  stood  with  hands  clasped  behind,  face  sadly  down 
cast,  looking  at  his  wife's  back. 

Milly  was  stouter  than  when  she  had  worked  in  the  box- 
shop.  She  had  also  coarsened.  Her  washed-out  hair  was 
gathered  in  a  hasty  knot  at  the  back  of  her  neck.  "Scolding 
locks"  stuck  out  at  wild  angles.  The  back  of  that  neck  was 
flat  and  homely.  She  wore  a  gingham  house  dress  that  was 
torn  in  the  front  and  she  could  have  materially  improved 
her  appearance  by  discarding  her  apron. 

"Well,"  she  demanded,  without  looking  around,  "if  the 
shop  ain't  going  to  start  up,  what  you  aimin'  to  do  ?" 

"I  haven't  thought  that  far  yet.  Get  a  job,  probably. 
Go  to  work !" 

"S'pose  old  Gridley  would  set  you  up  in  somethin'?" 

"I  wouldn't  ask  him,  even  if  he  would." 

"But  what  about  me,  I  say?    What  about  Mary?" 

"You  won't  starve.    I'll  see  to  that." 

"You'll  see  to  that !  Huh !  You  couldn't  even  see  your 
self  out  of  jail!  Gridley  had  to  come  clean  from  California 
and  see  it  for  you !" 

"Milly,  don't  let's  have  any  argument  to-night.  Please! 
I'm  nearly  all  in." 

"So  am  I  all  in !    You  never  give  a  thought  about  me  !" 

"Is  there  anything  to  eat  in  the  house?"  was  Nat's  way 
of  turning  the  edge  of  the  altercation. 

Milly  shrugged  her  shoulders.  Nathan  went  out  into 
the  cluttered,  odorous  kitchen  and  hunted  around  for 
food. 

He  found  a  stale  frankfurter  and  a  piece  of  soggy  pie. 
He  drew  a  glass  of  cold  water  and  sat  down  to  satisfy  his 
hunger  with  the  indigestible  mess. 

"Mary  cut  her  finger  this  afternoon,"  announced  the  wife. 
"I  had  to  get  Doc  Johnson  to  see  to  it."  Milly,  it  had  de 
veloped,  was  one  of  those  persons  who  summon  a  doctor 
for  every  indisposition  known  to  medicine  from  plain  old- 


272  THE  FOG 

fashioned  stomachache  to  falling  off  the  roof  and  breaking 
a  neck. 

"I've  got  something  else  to  think  about  now,  Milly,  besides 
Mary  cutting  her  finger." 

"Yeah !  I  s'pose  you  have.  You're  just  like  your  father. 
A  devil  of  a  lot  you  care  about  your  women  folks !"  Milly 
rammed  the  fire  angrily  and  poked  most  of  the  live  coals 
through  into  the  ash-pan.  "The  fire's  out!"  she  snapped. 
"And  there  ain't  any  wood." 

"But  I  gave  you  money  to  buy  wood  only  last  Friday." 

"Dad's  out  o'  work.  Nellie'd  have  to  give  up  her  pianner 
lessons  if  Ma  didn't  have  money  from  somewheres  till  dad's 
took  on  again.  I  loaned  it  to  her.  Blood's  a  little  thicker  in 
our  family  than  it  is  in  yours,  Nat  Forge!" 

The  food  Nat  had  eaten  failed  to  digest.  He  was  tired 
and  distraught  and  broken.  But  he  kept  his  temper. 

"Let's  go  to  bed  and  talk  it  over  in  the  morning,"  he 
begged.  "I  told  you  I'm  nearly  all  in.  Can't  you  see  it?" 

"No,  sir!  You  don't  go  to  bed,  Nat  Forge!  Not  till 
you've  made  this  fire  outta  somethin'.  You  don't  catch  me 
crawlin'  out  into  a  cold  house  when  Mary  wakes  up  in  the 
mornin'  and  buildin'  no  fire  like  your  mother  used  ter.  Not 
while  you  lie  abed  and  enjoy  yourself.  Besides,  it's  so  cold 
to-night  the  pipes'll  freeze.  Go  down  and  smash  up  the 
piano  box,  if  you  can't  find  anything  else." 

Nathan  lighted  a  lantern,  went  into  the  cellar  and  found 
kindling.  When  he  had  the  fire  negotiated,  Milly  was  in 
bed  with  the  little  daughter,  —  a  small  bed  in  the  side  room. 

Nathan  had  to  go  into  another  bedroom,  where  the  hoar 
frost  was  furry  on  the  glass,  and  crawl  between  icy  sheets 
alone. 

He  thought  of  many  things  that  night,  for  sleep  refused 
to  come.  Most  of  all  he  thought  of  Carol.  He  wondered 
what  had  become  of  her,  where  she  was  living  and  if  she 
was  happy.  Then  his  thoughts  turned  to  his  father,  and  he 
wondered  how  easily  Johnathan  was  resting  that  night,  with 
his  theft  on  his  soul  and  the  desertion  of  his  family  on  his 
spirit.  He  thought  of  his  mother  up  in  the  big  ark  on 
Vermont  Avenue,  crazed  by  the  possibility  that  the  court 
might  wrest  away  her  property  by  that  iron  process  known 
as  The  Law.  He  thought  of  his  sister,  married  to  a  French 
laborer,  with  a  baby  coming,  up  in  Canada.  He  thought  of 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  273 

Bernie  Gridley  and  her  father's  report  of  her  satisfactory 
marriage  to  a  Chicago  millionaire.  He  thought,  step  by 
step,  back  to  his  boyhood  and  his  days  with  me  in  Foxboro 
—  happy,  carefree  days. 

"Oh,  God,"  he  whispered  in  the  dark.  "Why  do  things 
happen  so  ?  Where's  the  reason  behind  it  all  —  for  there 
must  be  a  reason  ?  Do  events  and  experiences  come  hit-or- 
miss  —  by  chance  —  in  this  world  ?  It  can't  be !" 

Nathan  asked  himself  if  he  were  doing  right,  living  thus 
with  Milly  when  he  seemed  to  have  nothing  in  common  with 
her  but  their  child,  —  when  he  did  not  love  her?  Marriage? 
What  was  marriage  ?  Did  it  mean  merely  living  in  the  same 
house  with  a  woman,  eating  at  the  same  table,  sharing  the 
same  bed?  Or  did  marriage  mean  something  finer  and 
higher  and  better  than  that,  something  which  he  had  missed  ? 
Something  which  his  father  had  caused  him  to  miss.  What 
was  that  Something?  Where  should  he  go  to  look  for  it? 
What  must  he  do  ?  He  had  to  confess  he  did  not  know.  He 
had  no  standards  by  which  to  judge,  no  training  to  help 
him.  Even  Caleb  Gridley  could  not  help  him  there.  He 
remembered  that  Caleb  had  seemed  vaguely  relieved  when 
the  Duchess  had  passed  on. 

Out  of  the  ruck  of  all  the  fellow's  bittersweet  memories, 
his  present  perplexities,  the  foggy  blur  of  the  future,  one 
fact  stood  pieeminent,  however. 

He  must  go  on.  Somehow  he  must  go  on.  Perhaps  time 
would  solve  the  problem,  supply  the  great  answer.  But 

He  must  go  on. 

in 

The  night  Fred  Babcock  married  them,  there  had  been 
no  place  for  Nathan  to  take  his  bride  but  the  local  hotel. 
He  would  not  take  her  to  his  father's  home ;  he  did  not  care 
to  go  to  Milly's.  They  had  separated  for  an  hour,  each 
going  for  their  "things",  pitifully  meeting  at  the  Whitney 
House  later  to  set  sail  on  the  tempestuous  seas  of  mismated 
connubiality. 

Nathan  had  found  his  father  pacing  the  same  room,  wild- 
eyed,  wild-faced,  wild-haired,  hands  thrust  deep  in  trousers 
pockets.  The  room  was  in  wreckage.  His  mother  was  in 
an  adjacent  apartment,  eternally  rocking,  rocking,  rocking, 


274  THE  FOG 

considering  her  troubles  in  the  dark.  Father  and  mother 
quickly  forgot  their  differences,  however,  when  they  beheld 
Nathan  coming  down  the  front  stairs,  suitcase  in  either 
hand. 

"Where  you  going?"  demanded  Johnathan  sharply. 

"To  the  hotel." 

"You're  going  nowhere  of  the  sort.  Put  those  valises 
back  upstairs.  No  story'll  go  'round  this  town  if  I  can  help 
it,  that  the  very  night  my  son  turned  twenty-one,  he  packed 
his  traps  and  scooted." 

"Do  you  think  I'm  going  to  bring  a  wife  into  this?" 

"Bring  a  what  ?" 

"A  wife!" 

"Wait  till  you've  got  a  wife  before  you  talk  about 
bringing  her  into  anything.  Put  those  suitcases  back  up 
stairs  !" 

"But  I've  got  a  wife.    I  married  one  at  nine  o'clock.". 

In  the  darkened  room  Mrs.  Forge's  rocker  went  over  with 
a  bump,  she  sprang  from  it  so  quickly.  Johnathan  reached 
out  a  hand  and  clutched  the  banisters. 

"You  married  one  at  nine  o'clock?  Who  have  you  mar 
ried?" 

"Mildred  Richards.    Good  night!" 

Nathan  left  his  apoplectic  parents  standing  side  by  side. 

"Oh,  my  God!"  groaned  Johnathan.  He  staggered  to  the 
stairs  and  sat  down  flaccid,  his  face  buried  in  his  hands. 
He  remained  that  way  for  half  an  hour. 

Mrs.  Forge  walked  slowly  back  into  the  wrecked  dining 
room.  She  stood  looking  out  one  of  the  windows,  with 
clenched  fists  pushed  against  her  hips,  face  twitching,  biting 
one  corner  of  her  upper  lip  so  nervously  it  was  difficult  to 
discern  which  was  twitch  and  which  was  bite. 

After  that  first  tragic  half -hour,  Mrs.  Forge's  thinking 
amounted  to  this:  Nathan  had  packed  his  clothes  and  gone 
to  a  wife  and  those  clothes  were  not  in  a  very  happy  state 
of  laundering.  She  had  put  off  her  wash  that  week  until 
she  could  get  a  new  wringer.  She  still  did  her  own  wash 
ing.  Laundries  mangled  clothes  so. 

It  would  be  hectic  to  follow  on  into  the  week,  the  month, 
the  year  which  followed,  in  so  far  as  Nat's  marriage  affected 
his  father.  A  competent  phychologist  might  have  explained 
Johnathan,  but  explaining  him  would  have  availed  Nathan 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  275 

little  nor  lightened  his  load.  Johnathan's  ultimate  attitude 
was: 

He  had  preserved  stainless  the  morals  and  directed  suc 
cessfully,  though  thanklessly,  the  spiritual  education  of  his 
son  for  twenty-one  wasted  years.  The  lad  had  turned  out 
incorrigible.  That  did  not  alter  the  fact  that  Johnathan 
had  done  his  duty.  His  conscience  was  now  clear.  He  had 
discharged  his  obligations  to  God  and  State.  He  was  a  free 
man. 

The  attainment  of  his  majority  and  the  acquisition  of  a 
"helpmeet"  left  Nathan  to  be  treated  as  a  man.  And  the 
chief  incident  in  that  treatment  was  a  deliberate  compaign 
soon  started  for  a  show-down  to  determine  who  was  to  be 
manager  of  that  box-shop. 

The  effect  on  the  business  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  Johna 
than.  Or  if  he  thought  about  it,  he  told  himself  the  busi 
ness  was  so  large  he  could  afford  to  lose  occasionally  for 
the  sake  of  winning  a  principle. 

Not  once  did  the  man  realize  or  admit  the  rights  of  stock 
holders,  or  consider  them  on  a  par  with  himself  in  the  mat 
ter  of  ownership.  Stockholders  were  but  a  step  raised 
above  "help."  They  had  merely  been  privileged  to  share  in 
a  small  portion  of  the  company's  annual  profits.  Fiddle 
sticks  with  stockholders ! 

Nathan  had  kept  the  firm  "right  side  up"  and  always 
progressing  in  the  right  direction.  Johnathan  had  thereby 
gained  the  idea  that  businesses  —  at  least  manufacturing 
businesses  —  once  established,  ran  themselves.  By  sheer 
force  of  organization !  He  now  set  out  deliberately  and  ma 
liciously  to  checkmate  his  son  and  retard  him  in  every  way 
he  could  conceive.  The  business  was  a  bit  beyond  Johna 
than's  grasp.  So  he  decided  upon  a  policy  of  "retrench 
ment." 

"Retrenchment"  became  his  slogan  and  the  motto  on  his 
ensign.  Refusing  to  order  necessary  office  and  factory  sup 
plies  was  "retrenchment."  Turning  down  requests  for  quo 
tations  on  new  business  on  the  ground  that  the  company 
already  had  business  enough  was  "retrenchment."  "Dock 
ing"  a  little  flaxen-haired  stenographer  a  half-day's  wages 
when  she  went  home  ill  at  three  in  the  afternoon  was  "re 
trenchment."  Anything  and  everything  that  could  discount 
Nathan,  discredit  his  administration,  get  the  employees  dis- 


276  THE  FOG 

satisfied  with  the  boy's  management,  curtail  production  «•-. 
to  show  a  loss  which  could  be  triumphantly  charged  co 
Nathan  —  all  this  was  "retrenchment"  —  most  commendable 
"retrenchment."  Nathan  grew  to  abhor  the  word. 

At  such  times  as  the  father  succeeded  in  his  policy  and 
the  boy  was  humiliated  and  stopped,  Johnathan  waved  his 
hand  grandly  and  said:  "You  see!  Some  day  you  will 
grasp  that  your  father  is  older  and  therefore  must  know 
better !"  To  beat  Nathan  and  get  his  word  doubted  or  his 
ability  discounted  among  employees  or  stockholders  pleased 
Johnathan  more  than  declaring  a  twelve  per  cent,  dividend. 

Nathan  had  flouted  his  father,  deliberately  plunged  into 
matrimony  in  spite  of  all  his  father's  threats  and  admoni 
tions.  He  had  made  his  bed.  Now  let  him  lie  in  it.  But  in 
addition,  Johnathan,  as  the  mocked  parent,  intended  to  see 
that  the  bed  was  as  hard,  knotty  and  acanaceous  as  the 
father  knew  how  to  make  it. 

If  Nathan  didn't  like  all  this,  let  him  quit.  He,  Johna 
than,  had  managed  to  exist  a  considerable  time  before  Na 
than  came  into  it ;  he  guessed  he  could  take  care  of  himself 
and  his  business  "for  a  while  yet." 

But  Nathan  had  made  a  discovery  which  comes  ultimately 
to  many  organizers  and  builders,  —  that  there  is  a  point 
where  the  human  creator  may  become  slave  to  the  thing 
created. 

It  was  easy  enough  for  people  to  declare  wrathfully  that 
Nathan  should  leave  the  box-shop  and  strike  out  for  himself 
to  teach  John  a  lesson.  They  did  their  thinking  super 
ficially.  Nathan  had  built  that  business  under  old  Caleb's 
coaching.  He  had  a  thousand  details  at  his  finger  tips. 
Large  numbers  of  humble  folk  had  invested  in  the  com 
pany's  stock,  and  there  were  the  bank  loans.  The  boy 
knew  his  father  could  not  run  the  plant,  that  chaos  and 
failure  would  follow  swift  and  sure  upon  his  retirement. 
And  because  of  this  knowledge,  practical  experience  and 
large  bump  of  moral  responsibility,  the  boy  believed  he  had 
obligations  which  he  could  not  entirely  sacrifice  to  self- 
interest.  The  business  owned  him.  He  must  go  on,  not 
because  of  his  father,  but  in  spite  of  him.  Perhaps  Johna 
than  might  be  persuaded  to  drop  out  or  dispose  of  his  stock. 
Better  still,  he  might  die.  Or  the  bankers  and  stockholders 
might  some  day  learn  the  truth  in  a  way  that  would  not 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  277 

jeopardize  the  business.  In  that  event,  merit  and  loyalty 
must  be  rewarded.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  happened. 

Johnathan  had  controlling  stock  in  the  company,  and  he 
saw  to  it  that  he  kept  controlling  stock  in  the  company.  He 
would  no  more  have  considered  making  Nat  a  present  of  a 
block  than  he  would  have  considered  making  the  boy  a 
present  of  his  severed  hand.  He  had  worked  hard  for  all 
he  possessed,  Johnathan  had.  His  father  had  never  helped 
him.  Besides,  Nathan  had  proven  himself  incorrigible.  He 
had  married  against  his  father's  wishes.  Therefore  let  him 
suffer  the  full  penalty,  —  or  get  out  and  hustle  and  cultivate 
the  acquisitive  faculty  for  himself. 

Anyhow,  Nathan  received  no  stock  and  he  continued  in 
the  large  capacity  of  General  Superintendent.  The  most 
he  could  screw  from  the  business  was  thirty  dollars  a  week, 
and  Johnathan  constantly  reminded  him  that  this  was  far 
more  than  any  boy  of  twenty-two  had  any  title  or  right  to 
expect.  At  twenty-two,  he,  Johnathan,  had  drawn  only 
eight  dollars  a  week ;  why  on  earth  should  Nathan  receive 
more?  Because  he  was  married,  with  an  establishment  of 
his  own  ?  What  a  reason !  Johnathan  had  wasted  the  best 
years  of  his  life  thwarting  Nathan's  propensity  toward  just 
that  dilemma.  Why  recognize  and  regard  incorrigibility  by 
turning  over  profits  to  a  young  upstart,  even  in  the  form  of 
salary  ?  Beside,  he  was  committed  to  a  policy  of'  vigorous 
"retrenchment." 

This  situation  at  the  shop  was  something  Mildred  could 
never  understand.  She  and  her  family  had  assumed  that 
marrying  Nathan  meant  marrying  Millions.  Both  had  be 
lieved  that  with  the  Monday  following  the  nuptials,  it  was 
to  be  Milly's  delirious  destiny  to  dip  her  red,  paste-bedaubed 
fingers  into  the  Forges'  golden  pile  and  exist  forever  after 
in  castles  in  Spain.  The  realization  that  she  must  keep  her 
domestic  budget  inside  of  thirty  weekly  dollars  came  as  a 
blunt  shock.  "Why,  that's  only  ten  dollars  more  than  father 
makes;  it's  just  like  Ma's  had  to  do  all  her  life!"  cried  the 
angry,  astounded  girl.  Nevertheless,  it  was  the  truth,  the 
brutal  truth.  And  early  she  made  Nathan  feel  that  he  had 
buncoed  her. 

Nathan's  subsequent  estimate  of  Milly  was  no  more  sat 
isfying.  He  had  met  her  at  the  hotel  that  first  night,  con 
vinced  Pat  Whitney  they  were  properly  married  and  been 


278  THE  FOG 

given  one  of  the  lower  front  rooms.  It  was  Milly's  first 
contact  with  a  real  bathroom,  and  "a  regular  tub"  as  she 
expressed  it.  In  fact,  the  whole  experience  for  a  time  was 
not  unlike  a  glorious  entrance  into  marble  halls  of  which  all 
heroines  daydreamed  in  the  Elsie  books.  The  two  features 
of  their  apartment  which  most  interested  and  impressed  her 
were  the  globular  receptacle  on  the  washstand  which,  being 
inverted,  spilled  liquid  soap,  and  the  hemp  rope  with  handles 
on  it  coiled  on  a  hook  beside  a  window  for  use  in  case  of 
fire.  She  rather  hoped  there  would  be  a  fire.  It  might  be 
interesting,  going  down  that  rope.  Milly  had  heard  that 
vaguely  mystic  phrase,  "Hotel  life."  She  decided  she  liked 
"hotel  life."  Everything  was  so  convenient  and  "classy" 
and  modern. 

Nathan's  first  disillusion  came  when  the  girl  started  boldly 
to  disrobe  and  toss  her  clothing  about  on  the  chairs  and  the 
status  of  her  undergarments  was  disclosed.  There  were 
many  disillusions  that  night  and  the  day  and  week  ensuing. 
Milly  had  never  before  seen  pyjamas  at  close  range.  "Gawd, 
Ma,"  she  confided  awesomely  next  day,  "he  goes  to  sleep 
in  white  pants!  You  oughta  see  'em!" 

Nathan  awoke  first,  the  following  morning,  —  that  cold, 
much  celebrated  dawn  commencing  the  "day  afterward." 
He  looked  upon  the  features  of  his  still-sleeping  wife  as  a 
man  coming  from  metempsychosis.  She  wore  a  heavy  flan 
nel  nightgown  which  had  once  been  pink,  buttoned  to  her 
throat  with  Chinese  chastity.  Her  marcelled  pompadour 
was  shoved  over  one  ear.  Her  mouth  was  open  and  several 
teeth  needed  immediate  dental  attention.  A  shudder  ran 
through  the  boy.  He  was  in  bed  with  an  utter  stranger, 
with  whom  he  had  nothing  in  common,  —  a  female  of  whom 
he  knew  little  excepting  that  she  had  always  lived  on  the 
edge  of  the  "flats"  with  multitudinous  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  that  her  father  skinned  cows.  And  he  had  promised 
to  lovej  honor  and  cherish  her  until  death!  He  suddenly 
wanted  to  flee  Milly,  his  parents,  the  business,  Paris,  every 
thing, —  in  a  panic. 

Yet  he  could  have  forgiven  his  new  wife  many  deficien 
cies,  perhaps,  if  she  had  supplied  that  thing  he  had  most 
expected :  Sanctuary  in  her  arms. 

Milly  had  supplied  no  sanctuary  in  her  arms.  If  Milly 
had  arms,  they  were  far  from  the  purpose  of  solacing  dis- 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  279 

traught  masculinity.  Milly's  arms  were  very  necessary  con 
nections  between  her  paste-bedaubed  hands  and  her  ample^ 
shoulders.  Nothing  more.  What  else  did  he  expect  thern 
to  be? 

Nathan  was  shocked.  She  was  a  Woman,  wasn't  she? 
He  had  made  her  his  wife.  She  had  said  that  she  loved 
him  and  asked  him  if  there  were  anything  she  could  do  to 
make  him  happy.  What,  then,  was  wrong  ? 

A  small-town  Pygmalion  waited  for  the  conjugal  Galatea 
he  had  created  to  be  struck  with  divine  fire  and  return  his 
embrace  gloriously.  But  divine  fires,  alae^  rarely  impregnate 
dough  pans. 

Nathan  had  made  the  sickening  mistake  that  millions  of 
poor  youngsters  make  piteously  every  day, — that  keeps 
divorce  mills  grinding  to  the  horror  of  sanctimonious  relig 
ionists  :  He  had  mistaken  Sex  for  Ladyhood. 

Instead  of  Milly  inviting  Nathan  into  Carmel,  it  was  the 
man  who  descended  to  the  girl  as  though  she  were  a  coarse 
grained  child. 

Milly  in  propinquity  with  her  suddenly  acquired  husband 
was  the  charwoman  who  had  found  a  wounded  demigod 
by  the  wayside  and  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  him,  nor 
exactly  how  to  treat  him,  after  his  bruised  hulk  —  Olympus 
ostracized  —  was  hers  for  the  taking. 

Nathan  and  Milly,  however,  were  married.  In  metempsy 
chosis  or  no,  the  lad  had  assumed  obligations  he  felt  he 
could  not  retract.  A  home  might  solve  the  problem.  So 
Nathan  set  about  acquiring  a  home.  With  an  eye  to  the 
limitations  of  thirty  dollars,  he  rented  the  Mills  cottage  on 
Pine  Street,  —  a  six-room  structure  of  poor  sanitary  equip 
ment  and  no  furnace.  His  first  purchases  were  two  stoves, 
—  one  set  up  in  the  kitchen,  the  other  in  the  "sitting  room." 
Milly,  her  first  shock  of  disillusion  over,  proceeded  to  make 
the  best  of  a  bad  bargain. 

IV 

It  quickly  developed  that  she  had  a  passion  for  soap  clubs 
and  a  dangerous  propensity  toward  buying  from  agents. 
The  former  was  the  more  harmless  for  some  deliberation 
was  usually  given  to  premiums.  But  those  agents ! 

Milly  bought  a  twelve-volume  set  of  encyclopedias  "on 


28o  THE  FOG 

time"  before  she  and  Nathan  had  found  a  bedroom  carpet. 
She  bought  several  "shrieking"  rugs  from  Armenian  peddlers 
and  a  banquet  lamp  in  anticipation  of  domestic  equipment 
to  be  requisite  when  the  Forges  had  attained  to  banquets. 
She  was  imposed  upon  for  patent  mops  and  cheated  on 
carpe*  heaters.  She  laid  in  enough  stove  polish  to  shine 
all  the  baseburners  in  Paris  County.  Nathan  came  home 
one  night  and  found  himself  in  debt  for  an  upright  piano, 
twenty  dollars  down  and  five  dollars  a  month  until  death. 
Milly  thought  it  was  "just  simply  grand"  and  contracted  to 
begin  music  lessons  before  she  had  sheets  enough  for  her 
beds. 

But  her  wildest  orgies  were  carried  on  in  the  depths  of 
the  local  "five  and  ten." 

Milly  swore  by  F.  W.  Woolworth  as  by  a  savior.  Nathan 
gave  her  fifty  dollars  to  temporarily  furnish  her  pantry, 
more  money  than  she  had  ever  held  in  her  hands  at  one  time 
in  all  her  past  life.  Twenty-five  dollars  she  "slipped"  to 
her  mother  to  get  all  her  younger  brothers  and  sisters  some 
shoes.  With  the  other  half  she  "descended"  on  the  five-and- 
ten. 

She  bought  all  her  dishes  and  pantry  ware  from  the  five- 
and-ten.  She  bought  ribbons,  pictures  and  three  cardboard 
wastebaskets.  She  bought  flour  sifters  that  wouldn't  sift 
and  tack  pullers  that  wouldn't  pull.  She  procured  a  huge 
cambric  bag  and  came  home  each  night,  straining  beneath  it 
or  with  a  young  brother  pulling  it  on  his  sled.  Saturday 
afternoon  she  had  twenty-five  cents  remaining.  She  hunted 
the  five-and-ten  anxiously  for  five  articles  of  a  nickel  apiece 
which  "might  come  in  handy  around  the  house."  Her  last 
purchase  was  a  half-dozen  lead  pencils.  They  slipped  from 
her  moth-eaten  muff  before  she  reached  her  gate  however. 

The  Forge  home  became  a  jumble  of  nothing  in  particular 
but  in  character  somewhat  weird.  A  mahogany  rocker,  a 
mission  center  table,  a  golden-oak  whatnot  (secondhand) 
and  a  gilt  corner  chair  were  exhibits  A,  B,  C  and  D  in  the 
front  room.  The  walls  of  the  house  not  hung  with  small 
ten-cent  pictures  were  spattered  with  colored  postcards  on 
big  pins, — from  Savin  Rock  or  Nantasket  Beach.  The 
chaotic  total  of  all  this  shabby  gentility  shocked  Nathan 
when  he  beheld  it.  He  decided  it  was  a  lack  of  money.  He 
didn't  possess  enough  to  furnish  a  home  like  the  Seavers 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  281 

of  previous  mention.  But  he  did  make  a  start  the  first 
Christmas  by  surprising  Milly  with  a  quartered-oak  victrola 
to  harmonize  with  the  mission  center  table,  the  idea  being 
to  unify  eventually  the  scheme  of  the  room  as  more  bizarre 
effects  could  be  culled  out.  But  three  things  happened  to 
the  victrola  with  lamentable  swiftness.  First,  Milly  decided 
it  wasn't  the  center  table  she  wanted  the  victrola  to  match ; 
it  was  the  installment  piano.  So  without  consulting  Nathan 
she  went  as  usual  to  the  "five-and-ten"  and  bought  a  half- 
dozen  cans  of  "paint"  whose  outer  labels  bore  some  re 
semblance  to  the  color  of  the  piano.  The  effect  on  the  beau 
tiful,  dull,  mission  finish  was  not  at  all  what  Milly  had 
anticipated;  in  fact,  the  victrola  looked  as  though  it  had 
weathered  a  bad  attack  of  cherry  measles.  The  painting 
was  still  a  casus  belli  in  the  Forge  "parlor"  when  Jake 
Richards'  youngest  child  pulled  out  most  of  the  records  one 
Sunday  afternoon  and  broke  them ;  they  "cracked  with  such 
a  nice  noise !"  Lastly,  young  Tommy  Richards  decided  dur 
ing  an  after-school  visit  to  his  sister  that  something  ailed 
the  "works"  of  the  victrola  and  they  emphatically  needed 
fixing.  So  he  dug  out  an  alarming  array  of  "five-and-ten" 
tools,  everything  in  fact  but  an  ax,  and  proceeded  to  "fix" 
them.  The  novelty  of  it  palled  on  him  after  he  had  pinched 
a  finger,  and  he  deserted  the  science  of  melodious  mechanics 
entirely  when  he  unscrewed  a  mysterious  metal  compart 
ment  and  the  mainspring  exploded  in  his  face.  Mechani 
cally  speaking,  he  got  beyond  his  depth.  He  discreetly  yan- 
ished  and  the  victrola  sang  not  again. 

Nathan's  first  quarrel  of  note  with  Milly  resulted  from 
the  appropriation  of  the  married  sister's  home  by  the  Rich 
ards  tribe  as  an  extension  of  their  own.  'My  friend  made 
the  additional  discovery  common  to  many  men  who  have 
wedded  Sex  instead  of  Ladyhood,  that  he  had  also  married 
the  girl's  family.  As  soon  as  Milly  had  sorted  out  her 
Woolworth  dishes  and  run  up  a  thirty-dollar  bill  at  the  Red 
Front  Grocery,  she  affected  to  demonstrate  her  housewivery 
by  inviting  all  of  that  family  to  dinner, — Sunday  dinner. 
And  her  family  came.  Great  was  the  coming  thereof. 

Nathan  held  a  dim  idea  there  had  been  various  brothers 
and  sisters  in  the  Richards  house  across  the  "flats."  But 
that  first  Sunday  dinner  was  a  revelation  —  likewise  the 
alarming  quantities  of  food  it  required  to  satiate  them.  The 


282  THE  FOG 

Forge  larder  reasonably  resembled  "a  land  overflowing  with 
milk  and  honey"  before  they  came.  After  they  had  gone, 
that  thirty-dollar  commissary  had  been  attacked  as  by  a 
plague  of  Egyptian  locusts.  Nathan,  however,  had  not  be 
grudged  the  food.  What  bothered  him  most  was  their 
methods  of  assimilation.  There  had  been  little  or  no  table 
etiquette  at  Johnathan's  house.  But  such  as  it  had  been,  it 
was  courtly  beside  the  demonstration  in  "manners",  or  lack 
of  them,  revealed  at  that  first  Sunday  dinner  as  well  as  in 
many  hectic  repetitions. 

When  the  Richards  tribe  recovered  from  their  awe  of 
Nathan,  discovered  him  quite  a  mortal  being  with  two  arms, 
two  legs  and  a  propensity  to  consume  food  at  conventional 
intervals  like  themselves,  they  "pitched  in."  The  younger 
children  squalled  and  fought  over  smaller  delicacies.  Two 
of  them  enjoyed  a  pleasing  altercation  with  pieces  of  baked 
potato.  Mother  Richards  held  the  baby  against  a  moist 
breast  and  allowed  the  little  barbarian  to  pull  a  plate  of  soft 
squash  pie  into  her  lap.  This  was  lamentable  but  cute. 
Undoubtedly  Nathan  had  pulled  a  plate  of  soft  squash  pie 
into  his  mother's  lap  at  "thirteen  months." 

Nathan  took  issuance  with  old  Jake  one  Sunday,  however, 
for  producing  a  flat,  brown  hip-flask  and  using  copious 
draughts  therefrom  to  "give  him  an  appetite."  Thereafter 
old  Jake  "made  his  vittles  set  right"  with  more.  The  lad, 
sick  of  the  whole  Richards  tribe,  at  the  frayed  end  of  his 
patience  generally,  advised  old  Jake  in  hot  phrases  to  work 
up  his  appetites  and  make  his  vittles  set  right  with  alcohol 
elsewhere,  —  never  to  repeat  the  disgusting  performance  in 
his  home  again.  A  dour  time  followed.  Old  Jake  had 
imbibed  enough  to  be  quarrelsome.  Milly  took  her  father's 
part.  She  called  Nathan  a  hypocrite  because  "he  couldn't 
stand  the  sight  of  a  little  hooch."  It  was  her  house  as  well 
as  Nathan's  and  if  Nathan  didn't  like  it,  she  guessed  she 
knew  what  he  could  do.  Which  Nathan  did.  He  grabbed 
old  Jake  by  turkey  neck  and  trouser  seat  and  threw  him  out 
into  the  mud.  Old  Jake's  flask  and  hat  followed.  So  did 
the  Richards  tribe,  though  they  went  voluntarily  and  side 
stepped  the  mud.  They  swore  they  had  been  insulted ;  they 
would  never  set  foot  in  Nathan's  house  again.  But  a  month 
later  they  were  back ;  old  Jake  had  apologized,  he  had  said 
"blood  was  thicker  than  water"  and  it  didn't  pay  to  hold 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  283 

grudges.  And  they  descended  on  the  large  assortment  of 
table  delicacies  purchased  the  previous  evening  at  the  filite 
Bakery  and  ate  until  the  boy  wondered  if  sheer  hunger 
hadn't  driven  them  back.  He  thought  they  must  conserve 
their  appetites  during  the  week  to  distend  their  stomachs 
on  Sunday  noon  at  his  expense. 

The  same  superficial  logicians  who  would  acclaim  Nat  a 
weakling  for  not  leaving  his  father  to  learn  his  lesson  at  the 
box-shop  would  undoubtedly  have  the  boy  kick  his  way  out 
of  the  domestic  slough  in  which  he  had  slipped  now,  get 
divorced  and  make  a  fresh  start  elsewhere.  Very  good 
indeed  for  those  able  to  see  the  situation  in  perspective  or 
whose  enlightenment  permits  them  so  to  decide  the  matter 
for  their  own  gratification.  Nathan  could  not  see  the  situa 
tion  in  any  perspective;  he  had  little  training  and  less  en 
lightenment  to  help  him  decide  any  matter;  he  only  knew 
that  in  his  heart  was  a  blind,  piteous  groping  for  something 
higher  and  better,  knew  instinctively  that  this  sort  of  thing 
was  not  for  him  and  that  he  had  blundered,  blundered  hor 
ribly.  But  how  to  correct  that  blunder  was  quite  another 
question. 

There  was  a  baby  coming! 

The  lad  couldn't  bring  himself  to  cast  aside  or  leave  a 
woman  "in  Milly's  condition"  as  Mother  Richards  sighed 
over  it.  One  narrow  mistake,  made  far  back  the  day  Mrs. 
Forge  had  whirled  on  her  small  son  and  scared  him  so 
badly  anent  sex,  had  been  followed  by  another  and  another. 
As  he  grew  older,  blunder  after  blunder  had  rolled  up,  like  a 
ball  of  soft  snow  juggernauting  down  hill.  Now  he  was 
about  to  become  a  father,  temperamentally  a  pathetic  mix 
ture  of  half  man,  half  boy  himself.  No,  he  could  see  no 
self-justification  in  separating  from  Milly.  Not  then.  And 
things  went  from  bad  to  worse. 

The  baby  was  born  and  any  neatness  and  housewifery 
which  Milly  may  have  shown  before  its  arrival  were  quickly 
dispensed  with,  "caring  for  baby."  Milly  apparently  spent 
whole  days  and  weeks  "caring  for  baby."  Her  floors  went 
unswept  and  her  dishes  went  unwashed.  Nathan  subsisted 
on  various  sticky  pastries  procured  from  the  filite  Bakery. 
With  increasing  frequence  he  was  advised  frankly  to  "go  up 
town  and  get  his  supper"  because  "care  of  baby"  had  so 
preoccupied  the  shining  hours  that  Milly  hadn't  even  had 


284  THE  FOG 

time  to  do  up  her  hair.  Which  was  self-evident.  If  she 
"did  up  her  hair"  twice  a  week,  she  performed  the  extraordi 
nary.  She  "twisted  it  up  for  comfort"  in  the  morning  and 
it  was  still  twisted  up  for  comfort  when  she  retired  at  night. 
And  Milly  was  always  overworked,  frightfully  overworked. 
She  said  so.  Nathan  had  to  listen.  All  this,  while  Johna- 
than  was  doing  his  utmost  at  the  factory  to  show  his  son 
that  he  was  wrong  in  everything  on  general  principle  and 
all  the  trouble  between  father  and  son  was  Nat's  conceit, 
incorrigibility  and  inherent  animosity  against  "retrench 
ment." 

Nathan  had  heard  somewhere  about  the  queer,  constricted 
twinge  which  comes  to  a  father  who  feels  the  tiny  fingers  of 
his  first-born  grip  his  own.  Nathan  felt  no  such  twinge. 
The  baby  was  born  at  the  Richards'  home  across  the  "flats." 
Nathan  had  wished  his  wife  to  go  to  the  local  hospital  but 
Milly  was  shy  of  hospitals.  She  called  them  "butcher 
shops."  Nathan  ate  his  meals  at  the  £lite  the  week 
preceding  the  great  event  and  slept  in  an  unmade  bed 
in  a  slovenly  house.  Then  one  mid-afternoon  young 
Tom  burst  into  the  box-shop  office.  Excitedly  he  accosted 
Nathan. 

"Hey !"  he  yelled.  "Yer  kid's  come !  An'  I  lost  my  bet 
with  Mickey  Sweeney.  I  said  it  was  gonna  be  a  boy  and  the 
darn  thing's  cost  me  thirty  cents !" 

Nathan  went  at  once  to  the  "house  across  the  flats."  The 
baby  was  much  in  evidence,  or  its  lungs  were.  Nathan 
thought  it  sounded  like  the  victrola  when  the  needle  ran  off 
and  played  one  horrible  sound  over  and  over. 

The  child  looked  like  a  worm  and  was  hideously  homely. 
Mrs.  Richards  refused  to  let  him  take  it.  He  could  see 
Milly  "sometime  to-morrow." 

He  went  back  to  the  shop.  Six  men  had  "walked  out 
coi(i"  because  Johnathan  had  seized  upon  his  enforced  ab 
sence  to  insist  they  load  a  freight  car  his  way  and  in  the  de 
fiance  of  a  method  Nathan  and  the  men  had  spent  months 
in  perfecting. 

"Huh!  Father,  are  you?"  sniffed  Johnathan.  "And  the 
milk  isn't  wiped  off  your  own  chin  yet.  A  father !  Fiddle 
sticks!" 

Five  years  of  this,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  and  now 
the  box-shop  had  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh. 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  285 

Nathan  slept  in  the  dark,  old  Caleb  and  myself  the  only 
sincere  friends  he  had  on  earth. 

Oh,  Mediocrity!  What  crimes  against  youth  may  be 
committed  in  thy  name! 


The  evening  following  Nathan's  release  from  custody, 
my  mother  met  me  as  I  entered  our  home,  the  hour  about 
seven-thirty. 

"Nathan's  ill,"  she  declared.  "I  met  the  Doctor's  wife 
at  the  missionary  meeting  this  afternoon  and  she  told  me. 
He  ate  something  last  night  that  disagreed  with  him  and 
had  a  bad  case  of  acute  indigestion  along  toward  morning. 
But  the  Doctor  says  what  really  ails  Nat  is  a  general 
•nervous  breakdown  and  collapse.  You'd  better  go  over. 
If  there's  anything  I  can  do,  let  me  know.  I'll  keep  your 
supper  in  the  fireless  cooker." 

I  went  to  the  Pine  Street  cottage. 

Milly  had  always  distrusted  me.  She  said  Nathan  "car 
ried  tales"  to  me  about  herself  and  her  folks.  Therefore 
she  was  customarily  surly  when  she  admitted  me. 

I  found  Nathan  in  a  side  room,  the  place  warmed  by  a 
stinking  oil  heater.  He  was  lying  on  his  stomach  in  a 
rumpled  bed,  his  fevered  face  buried  in  his  arms.  He 
turned  over  when  I  entered.  He  smiled  grimly.  Milly 
stood  at  the  door  for  an  instant  and  then  said  —  to  Nathan : 

"Guess  you'll  live  till  I  get  back.  I'm  going  down  to 
mother's.  Ruth's  having  a  party  and " 

"Yeah!"  shrieked  little  Mary,  "and  they're  gonna  have 
ice  cream !" 

So  Mildred  and  the  child  slammed  out  of  the  house.  I 
scooped  an  armful  of  miscellaneous  clutter  from  a  chair 
and  swung  it  over  to  Nat's  bedside.  But  first  I  lowered 
the  window  and  changed  the  air. 

"I'm  glad  you've  come,  Bill,"  he  said  huskily.  "If  it 
wasn't  for  you  and  old  Gridley,  there's  times  it  seems  I'd 
be  almost  ready  to  quit." 

"Buck  up,  old  man,"  I  told  him.  "Nothing's  so  bad  that 
it  can't  be  worse." 

"Yes,  I  know !  And  God  Almighty  hates  a  quitter !  But 
I'm  so  muddled  and  antagonized  and  shot  to  pieces 


286  THE  FOG 

physically  that  I've  almost  lost  my  grit  to  go  on.  I've  lost 
it,  Billy,  because  somehow  I  can't  see  much  incentive  for 
going  ahead." 

We  talked  then  as  men  will  talk.  We  were  not  choice 
as  to  metaphor  or  idiom.  We  discussed  The  Sex  with  re 
lieving  frankness ;  we  did  not  refer  to  spades  as  long- 
handled  agricultural  implements  used  to  turn  over  the  sod 
to  find  fishworms  or  for  the  digging  of  graves. 

"Bill !  Bill !"  my  friend  cried  feverishly.  "Tell  me  what 
it's  all  for!  Tell  me  why  it's  happened  to  me  like  this! 
Tell  me  where  I've  erred!  Tell  me  how  it's  all  to  end! 
What's  the  constructive  meaning  in  it  all,  Bill,  —  and  is  there 
any  constructive  meaning?" 

Tell  him?  How  could  I  tell  him?  How  could  I  make 
him  see  that  his  present  predicament  was  as  simple  a 
denouement  of  causes  set  in  motion  years  back  as  it  was 
natural  for  a  field  of  waving  corn  to  follow  the  dropping  of 
potent  yellow  kernels  in  the  spring. 

Married  to  a  cheap  woman  who  "guessed  he  wouldn't 
die"  before  she  returned  from  a  party  where  the  chief 
item  of  interest  was  ice  cream,  lying  in  a  slovenly  claptrap 
of  a  home,  excoriated  by  thoughtless  local  people,  facing  a 
court  hearing  and  possible  disgrace,  laden  with  domestic 
obligations  from  which  there  was  no  escape  in  honor,  as 
a  man  of  his  type  conceives  honor,  —  all  harked  back,  I  say, 
to  the  first  day  he  had  sought  enlightenment  about  sex 
from  the  place  he  should  have  sought  it,  his  mother,  and 
been  shocked  instead  into  vicious  repression.  That  childish 
"shocking"  was  an  epilogue  of  all  the  sordid  method  of 
training  him.  For  what?  For  exactly  what  Nathan  was 
as  he  lay  this  night  upon  his  bed. 

The  intolerable  vileness  and  injustice  of  the  whole  miser 
able  business  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  father  and  mother 
responsible  not  only  went  scot  free  from  the  penalty  son 
and  daughter  must  pay,  but  saw  absolutely  no  blame  for 
themselves  in  that  denouement.  Blame  for  themselves? 
They  actually  believed  themselves  wronged. 

Nathan  rolled  feverishly  on  his  rumpled  bed. 

"Bill,"  he  rambled  on  wistfully,  "remember  the  walks  and 
talks  we  had  when  we  were  kids  —  the  nights  under  the 
starlight  —  the  boat  rides  down  the  river  when  I  looked 
into  the  future  and  the  world  seemed  so  beautiful  and 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  287 

wonderful,  it  hurt?  I  dreamed  of  a  future  then,  Bill,  in 
which  I  was  affluent  and  successful  —  a  wonder-time  when 
all  my  dreams  were  coming  true.  And  have  a  look,  Bill! 
I'm  loaded  with  the  disgrace  of  the  box-shop  failure  and 
half  the  poor  people  in  town,  it  seems,  weeping  over  their 
lost  savings ;  married  to  a  wife  I  don't  seem  to  get  along 
with  —  with  a  baby  that  isn't  being  brought  up  at  all  the 
way  I'd  like  to  see  her  brought  up  —  paying  the  bills  of  a 
home  where  I  can't  even  get  food  cooked  to  eat  nor  a  bed 
made  to  sleep  on  —  less  than  a  hundred  dollars  to  my 
name " 

"I'll  loan  you  whatever  money  you  need,  Nat!  How 
much ?" 

"Oh,  it  isn't  that,  Bill,  it  isn't  that !  I  dreamed  of  a  wife 
who'd  be  a  mate  and  a  pal,  Bill ;  one  who'd  be  in  a  woman 
all  that  mother  and  the  rest  of  the  women  I've  known 
were  not  —  who  could  work  with  me  and  play  with  me  and 
laugh  with  me  and  love  with  me  —  and  —  and  —  I've  gone 
to  work  and  tied  myself  for  life  to  a  poor  girl  who  writes 
her  name  like  a  seven-year-old  and  doesn't  know  whether 
Bacon  was  a  poet  or  something  you  buy  for  twelve  cents 
a  pound  at  the  butcher's  and  comes  from  a  hog.  I  dreamed 
of  a  home,  Bill  —  fine  and  rare  and  restful  and  rich,  where 
all  my  treasures  were  to  be  gathered,  where  lights  were 
seductive  and  every  hour  a  golden  moment  —  what  was  that 
line  I  quoted  to  you  once,  Bill  —  about  'art  drawing-rooms 
softly  shaded  at  midnight?'  And  look  what  I've  got! 
Six  rooms  cluttered  with  junk,  one  step  removed  from 
squalor  in  a  mud  hut!  This  is  my  life,  Bill,  and  I'm  only 
twenty-six !  They  say  America  may  get  drawn  into  the  war. 
Maybe  —  maybe  —  that's  going  to  be  my  way  out.  Only 
somehow,  going  to  war  in  that  spirit  and  leaving  a  foul 
nest  behind  seems  weakness,  Bill,  not  a  whole  lot  different 
than  putting  the  muzzle  of  a  shotgun  into  my  mouth  and 
pulling  the  trigger  with  my  foot!" 

As  I  remained  silent,  he  went  on : 

"Bill,  remember  the  day  I  told  you  something  about 
life  being  a  fog  —  in  which  I  groped  blindly?  Who's  re 
sponsible  for  that  fog?  Am  I  responsible,  Bill  —  because  I 
can't  find  any  way  out  ?" 

"No!"  I  cried  wrathfully.  "Your  folks  are  responsible! 
Damn  them  bringing  kids  into  the  world  and  thinking 


288  THE  FOG 

they've  done  their  whole  duty  by  simply  giving  them  food 
for  their  bodies  and  clothes  for  their  backs!  Damn  the 
assumption  that  parents  are  under  no  obligation  to  supply 
as  much  protection  and  training  for  a  child's  mind  and 
spirit  as  the  law  demands  shall  be  supplied  to  its  body!" 

"I'm  groping,  Bill !  Groping,  groping  groping !  Will  I 
ever  find  my  way  out?  I  wonder?  It's  too  late  now  to 
damn  father  and  mother.  Poor  souls,  I'm  just  beginning 
to  see  now  they  didn't  know  any  better.  And  the  hopeless 
part  of  my  predicament  is  that  now  I'm  the  father  of  a 
child  in  turn  —  although  somehow  I  can't  feel  like  a  father ! 
—  and  if  I  don't  play  out  my  hand,  the  day's  coming  when 
my  child  is  going  to  turn  around  and  execrate  me  as 
cordially  as  I  feel  like  execrating  my  own  folks  to-night!" 

"The  trouble  with  you  is,  Nat  —  you're  too  darned  con 
scientious  for  your  own  good.  You've  got  a  great  bump 
of  moral  responsibility  and  it  fills  the  whole  of  the  inside 
of  you.  What  you  lack  is  a  good  healthy  selfishness  that 
would  make  people  —  especially  your  own  relatives  —  quit 
playing  you  for  a  sucker!" 

"Easy  enough  to  say,  Bill.  That's  what  Caleb  Gridley 
contended.  But  if  I  acquired  such  a  selfishness,  where 
would  I  start  in  to  exercise  it?  Father?  He's  gone! 
Mother?  Lord!  She'd  run  shrieking  through  Main  Street 
and  probably  end  up  in  an  asylum.  Besides,  after  all,  she's 
my  mother!  Milly?  I've  married  her  and  burdened  her 
with  a  child.  She's  no  different  than  she  was  when  I  mar 
ried  her.  In  so  far  as  she's  been  given  the  light,  or  had  the 
training  in  turn  from  her  parents,  she's  doing  the  best  she 
knows  how.  No,  the  trouble  with  me  is,  Bill,  I'm  cursed 
with  the  type  of  mind  that  unconsciously  turns  back  to 
causes  for  every  result.  And  when  I  analyze  those  causes, 
I  can't  do  anything  that  savors  of  injustice.  I  don't  think 
I'm  pitying  myself  when  I  say  that  I've  known  so  much 
injustice  myself  that  I  can't  find  it  in  my  heart  to  pass 
more  along  to  others.  Folks  who  have  suffered  are  quicker 
to  detect  suffering,  I  suppose.  They  shrink  from  passing 
it  along.  I  don't  know !  Somehow  I've  learned  to  judge 
folks,  not  by  their  conscious  acts  or  the  results  they  get, 
so  much  as  by  their  motives..  But  it's  got  me  in  a  devil 
of  a  mess,  Bill.  And  I'm  a  poor  hater  —  a  rotten  poor  hater. 
There's  dad  now,  I  don't  hate  him  half  as  much  as  I  did 


GROPING  TERRIBLY  289 

a  few  years  ago.  I'm  beginning  to  pity  him  —  for  his  nar 
rowness  and  weakness  and  the  things  he  couldn't  under 
stand." 

What  can  be  done  with  a  chap  like  that?  I  give  it  up. 
The  predicament  simply  had  to  work  itself  out. 

"John  and  Anna  Forge  are  only  types  of  lots  o'  parents, 
William,"  said  Uncle  Joe  Fodder  when  I  went  to  the  old 
philosopher  for  counsel  later  that  week.  "Not  all  of  'em 
are  so  narrow  and  vicious  as  John  and  Anna.  It  isn't  always 
the  girl  question  that  gets  'em  all  het  up  so  they  raise 
Cain  with  their  kids.  But  most  parents  is  nuts  over 
somethin',  and  their  kids  has  to  take  the  backwash.  And 
most  growed  folks  don't  make  their  selves  much  trouble 
forgettin'  their  own  kidhood  or  how  they  felt  about  life's 
big  problems  while  they  too  was  growin'.  But  the  worst 
sin  they're  guilty  of,  William,  is  bringing  kids  into  the 
world,  raisin'  'em  to  sixteen,  eighteen  or  twenty-one,  maybe 
—  then  turnin'  'em  loose  to  shift  for  theirselves  and  lettin' 
the  devil  take  the  hindmost.  Among  all  the  animals,  Man, 
the  highest  in  development,  is  the  only  one  that  don't  take 
much  trouble  to  show  their  young  how  to  hunt  a  livin'  or 
dodge  life's  traps.  And  more's  the  pity!  Why,  even  a 
woodchuck  does  better'n  that!" 

"Oh,  well,  Nat,"  I  said,  as  I  finally  arose  to  leave  that 
night,  "if  the  allotted  span  of  human  life  is  seventy  years, 
as  Holy  Writ  contends,  and  you're  only  twenty-six  now, 
you've  got  forty-four  years  ahead  of  you  yet.  And  forty- 
four  years  can  bring  many  changes,  old  man.  Perhaps  all 
this  is  only  education  and  training  for  something  finer  and 
grander  and  sweeter  than  you've  ever  dreamed  of  yet. 
Only  being  down  close  to  it  and  going  through  it  right  now 
to-night  it's  rather  hard  to  see  it." 

"You  really  think  so,  Bill?"  Nathan  asked  almost  pite- 
ously. 

"Who  knows,  Nat?" 

"I've  been  studying  my  Bible  a  bit,  Bill  I'm  not  ashamed 
to  admit  it.  Not  dad's  Bible  —  the  Bible.  Men  in  perplexity 
have  been  going  to  the  Bible  for  a  long,  long  time,  Bill. 
And  I've  been  doing  a  lot  of  thinking  about  the  words  of 
the  psalmist :  'Whom  the  Lord  loveth,  He  chasteneth.'  I've 
never  forgotten  how  you  and  I  prayed  that  poor  little  kid's 
prayer  that  night  in  the  alders  after  I'd  tried  to  kiss 


290  "THE  FOG 

Bernie  Gridley.  I've  done  a  lot  of  praying,  Bill  —  I  mean  — 
to  do  more.  I've  wondered  if  it's  true,  'Whom  the  Lord 
loveth,  He  chasteneth  ?'  Is  that  the  reason  I  must  grope  for 
a  time  in  a  fog  before  finding  a  hill  top  where  the  sun's 
shining  gloriously  —  and  Someone  —  is  waiting  for  me  to 
come  up?  I  wonder  if  there  is  a  God  —  if  the  world  is 
anything  but  a  little  fleck  of  gravel,  twirling  off  in  space  — 
if  the  hairs  of  our  heads  are  not  numbered  —  if  the  sparrows 
aren't  seen  when  they  fall?  I  wonder,  Bill,  if  the  Almighty 
perhaps  —  does  —  love  —  me  ?  And  —  that's  —  the  rea 
son?" 

My  throat  grew  thick  at  the  way  he  said  it.  Nathan  on 
the  bed  blurred  before  me.  There  was  nothing  maudlin 
about  it. 

VI 

Nathan  was  ill  two  weeks.  The  affairs  of  the  box-shop 
were  wound  up.  Nathan  was  exonerated  from  any  criminal 
complicity  in  his  father's  felony.  The  fiasco  passed  into 
small-town  industrial  history. 

My  friend  secured  a  position  in  the  sales  department  of 
the  knitting  mills.  A  month  later  he  started  off  on  the  road. 
His  salary  was  two  thousand  a  year  and  a  generous  bonus 
in  commissions.  I  think  Caleb  Gridley  was  responsible. 


VII 

Milly  considered  herself  left  a  widow  without  a  widow's 
privileges.  One  night  she  met  Si  Plumb  on  the  street  and 
let  him  take  her  into  the  Olympic  picture  show. 

She  knew  people  were  commenting  and  was  defiant. 

The  film  was,  "Her  Right  to  Happiness."  There  was 
a  travelogue  and  a  current  pictorial  beforehand.  However, 
the  travelogue  and  current  pictorial  didn't  count. 


CHAPTER  III 

GOOD   RESOLUTIONS 


Madelaine  Theddon  had  returned  from  a  matinee  one 
spring  afternoon  when  she  was  met  by  the  announcement 
that  a  gentleman  had  been  waiting  an  hour.  Gordon  Ruggles 
arose  to  greet  her. 

Madelaine's  first  feeling  was  one  of  extreme  annoyance 
and  defiant  exasperation.  She  looked  at  Gordon,  however, 
and  realized  in  an  instant  that  a  change  had  come  over 
the  fellow.  What  had  happened? 

"Don't  be  angry,  Madge,"  he  pleaded  respectfully  enough. 
"All  I  want  is  a  few  minutes  —  to  talk." 

Gordon  was  clothed  differently.  His  rakish,  sport  suit 
had  given  way  to  sober  black.  He  stood  erect  and  not 
with  a  leering  slouch.  Most  of  all,  he  had  visited  a  surgeon- 
dentist  and  that  disfiguring  front  tooth  had  been  corrected. 
It  had  been  cut  off  and  a  crown  put  in  its  place  which 
gave  his  mouth  and  the  entire  front  of  his  face  a  different 
appearance.  Yes,  Gordon  had  changed. 

"I'm  not  angry,  Gord.  Why,  you're  looking  fine !  What's 
happened  ?" 

"Maybe  I  can  explain  —  if  you'll  give  me  the  opportunity. 
I've  been  doing  a  lot  of  thinking  lately,  Madge." 

She  laid  her  street  wraps  on  the  bed  in  the  adjoining 
room  and  came  back,  patting  her  hair. 

"May  I  smoke,  Madge?  It  would  help  what  I  want  to 
say." 

Might  he  smoke?  It  was  the  first  time  Gordon  had  ever 
made  such  a  request.  Formerly  he  would  have  smoked 
whether  it  offended  her  or  not. 

"Certainly,"  she  replied. 

He  did  not  produce  his  familiar  gold-plated  cigarette 
case.  He  lighted  a  cigar.  Then,  having  accepted  the  chair 


292  THE  FOG 

she  indicated,  he  leaned  back  and  put  a  half-inch  of  ash 
on  the  tip  of  the  fine  Havana  before  he  started. 

"Madge,  I've  been  an  awful  cad,  haven't  I?" 

"Yes,  Gordon,"  was  the  girl's  candid  answer.  "You 
have!" 

"I  know!     I'm  sorry!" 

"You're  sorry!     And  how  long  have  you  been  sorry?" 

"Dad  came  down  here  to  see  you,  didn't  he  —  a  few 
months  ago?" 

"I'll  be  frank.     He  did." 

"Yes.  He  went  back  to  Springfield.  And  do  you  know 
what  he  did?" 

"What  did  he  do?" 

"He  gave  me  the  darndest  thrashing  —  the  first  —  he 
ever  gave  me  in  his  life.  I  never  suspected  he  had  it  in 
him!" 

"What?" 

"He  did.  I  wish  he'd  given  it  to  me  a  dozen  years  ago. 
I  had  it  coming." 

Madelaine  sat  astonished.    This  from  Gordon ! 

"Yes,  he  did  —  and  I  had  it  coming,  I  say.  Not  only  that, 
he  stopped  my  allowance;  I  haven't  had  a  cent  from  him 
for  weeks  —  months !  Four  of  them !" 

"Where  —  what  —  how  are  you  supporting  yourself?" 

"I  went  to  work,  Madge.  I've  been  working  since  the 
last  of  February." 

"Gordon  Ruggles!" 

"I  don't  want  any  credit.  And  don't  compliment  me.  I 
don't  deserve  it." 

"What  sort  of  work  are  you  doing?" 

"I  got  a  job  in  an  iron  foundry.  I  make  forty  dollars  a 
week.  And  did  you  know,  Madge  —  honestly  —  it  looks  big 
ger  than  the  whole  thousand  your  mother  let  me  have  the  day 
we  first  met." 

Madelaine  could  not  keep  her  pleasure  from  her  voice. 

"That's  simply  fine,  Gord!  And  what  do  your  father 
and  mother  think  about  it?" 

"Pop  doesn't  say  much.  He's  too  riled.  You  must  have 
given  him  a  pretty  bad  jolt  when  he  came  to  see  you.  He 
always  thought  we  Ruggleses  were  so  absolutely  perfect  —  it 
certainly  took  him  down  a  peg,  you  bet.  Mother  —  well, 
mother  thinks  I'm  crazy  —  or  at  least  father  is.  She  thinks 


GOOD  RESOLUTIONS  293 

it's  pretty  much  another  lark  I'm  on  and  in  time  I'll  get 
over  it." 

"That's  not  the  right  attitude,  Gord.  You're  doing  a 
splendid  thing." 

Gordon  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Mother's  got  her  notions.  They're  pretty  high-flown. 
We  don't  see  much  of  each  other.  I'm  not  living  at  home. 
I'm  boarding  with  a  fellow  who  works  in  the  same 
office." 

"And  you  did  this  because  your  father  thrashed  you?" 

"Not  exactly,  Madge.  The  fact  that  father  —  as  much 
of  a  fop  and  a  prig  as  he's  always  been  —  could  do  it,  started 
me  thinking.  Besides  —  anyway,  Madge  —  honestly,  I  was 
tired  of  searching  for  thrills.  I'd  tried  all  the  thrills  till 
only  one  remained  —  Work.  I  wonder  if  you  can  under 
stand?" 

"Perhaps   I  understand,  Gord,  better  than  you  think." 

"Madge,  I'm  going  to  tell  you  something  else." 

"I'm  sure  I'm  delighted  to  hear  whatever  you've  got  to 
tell  me  —  along  this  line.  It's  perfectly  splendid !" 

"Madge,  I'm  going  to  tell  you  something  because  I've 
got  to  tell  you.  Madge  —  I  lote  you!"  He  said  this  last 
in  a  whisper. 

It  was  silent  in  the  apartment  for  a  moment  after  that. 
The  manner  of  the  fellow's  declaration  was  different.  This 
was  not  the  hoyden  who  had  tried  to  compromise  her.  His 
eyelid  didn't  flop,  either.  Madge  noticed  that. 

"I  love  you,  Madge,"  the  man  went  on  before  she  could 
frame  a  suitable  reply.  "I've  always  loved  you.  I  loved 
you  from  the  moment  I  set  eyes  on  you  that  day  I  banged 
into  your  bedroom,  although  I  didn't  know  it  was  love — 
not  then.  You've  always  had  a  peculiar  influence  over  me, 
Madge.  I've  been  a  rotter.  I've  done  things  for  which  I 
can't  look  myself  in  the  mirror  —  to  say  nothing  of  you. 
But  —  well,  if  a  chap  can  be  sorry,  then  I'm  sorry.  I'm 
trying  to  show  I'm  sorry  by  straightening  out.  I've  met 
other  girls  and  I've  raised  blue  hell  with  them.  But  they've 
been  incidents  in  my  life;  they've  come  and  they've  gone. 
You  haven't  come  and  gone,  Madge.  Always  you  have  held 
the  same  place  in  my  feelings  and  emotions.  You've  seemed 
steady,  sure,  something  just  a  little  above  me,  waiting  for 
me  to  come  through  clean.  I  say  I  love  ,,ou,  Madge.  I've 


294  THE  FOG 

come  down  here  to  tell  you  so.    I  had  to  tell  you.    I  wanted 
you  to  know  and  understand." 

"You're  paying  me  a  great  compliment,  Gordon,"  the 
woman  managed  to  articulate  at  last.  "But  —  but  —  I  can't 
marry  you,  Gord.  Somehow  —  I  can't." 

"I'm  not  asking  you  to  marry  me,  not  yet,  Madge.  In  a 
lot  of  ways  I'm  my  same  old  self.  But  I  want  you  to  know 
that  I'm  working  for  something,  even  if  it's  only  your 
regard  and  esteem  and  respect,  Madge.  That's  been  the 
big  trouble  with  me,  all  my  life.  I've  never  had  an  in 
centive —  any  goal  ahead  to  win.  From  as  far  back  as  I 
can  remember,  there's  been  no  occasion  for  me  to  work 
and  win  anything.  Everything  came  easy  —  or  rather,  it  was 
at  hand  for  me  to  sample  by  simply  reaching  out  and  taking 
it,  even  other  girls  and  women,  Madge.  You've  been  the 
only  thing  that's  been  denied  me;  that  piqued  me  because 
I  couldn't  have  you  by  bawling  for  you  or  'rushing'  you. 
Pop  and  mother  let  me  have  all  the  money  I  wanted  from 
the  day  I  could  reach  up  over  a  counter  and  hand  some 
one  silver  coins.  Nothing  was  ever  too  good  for  me.  I 
got  a  rotten  idea  of  my  own  importance.  And  I've  known 
I  had  it  for  a  long,  long  time.  There's  a  lot  of  it  left  yet. 
But  I've  reached  the  place  where  I'm  tired  of  having  every 
thing  handed  to  me.  Honest  to  God,  Madge!  The  world 
and  everything  in  it  was  beginning  to  go  stale.  I'd  ex 
plored  everything  I'd  seen  to  explore ;  I'd  had  everything 
I  caterwauled  for;  people  had  gone  and  come  the  moment 
I  set  up  a  tantrum  or  showed  fight.  And  life  was  going 
stale,  I  say.  It  was  the  same  old  thing,  over  and  over 
and  over.  I  might  have  a  better  motor-car  or  a  prettier 
woman.  But  still  it  would  only  be  an  automobile  and  a  — 
a  —  some  one  to  play  with.  I  looked  into  the  future  and 
saw  nothing  different  until  the  day  I  dropped.  And  then 
Pop  banged  me  in  good  shape  one  night  in  the  library. 
He  used  a  razor  strop  —  yes,  he  did.  I'm  tall  as  he  is,  and 
I  thought  I  could  lick  my  weight  in  anything  human  that 
lived,  male  or  female.  But  he  showed  me  I  couldn't.  We 
made  an  awful  mess.  But  he  trimmed  me  properly  and 
sat  on  my  chest.  When  he'd  shown  he  could  do  it,  he  started 
talking  to  me.  Among  other  things,  he  made  me  promise 
I'd  come  down  here  at  the  first  opportunity  and  humbly 
ask  your  forgiveness.  I  vowed  for  a  time  I  wouldn't.  But 


GOOD  RESOLUTIONS  295 

I  found  a  new  thrill  and  a  new  interest  in  work  and  I 
wondered  if  I  wasn't  cheating  myself  by  not  playing  the 
gentleman  —  with  you  —  with  —  everybody.  I  don't  mean  as 
a  policy,"  the  fellow  added  hastily.  "I  mean  because  it 
was  what  I  ought  to  do.  And  so  I've  come,  Madge.  I've 
got  to  be  back  on  the  job  Monday  morning,  but  I  want  to 
go  back  feeling  I've  got  a  new  interest  in  life  —  something 
worth  while.  That's  the  whole  story  in  a  nutshell,  Madge. 
And  I'm  telling  you  frankly  I  love  you  and  —  I'm  sorry  — « 
terribly  sorry!" 

What  could  she  do?  What  could  she  say?  Her  reply 
sounded  trite  and  inadequate. 

"That's  manly  of  you,  Gordon.  And  —  well,  I'm  going 
to  tell  you  exactly  what  I  told  your  father  —  if  you  prove 
the  stuff  that's  latent  in  you,  you  stand  as  good  a  chance  of 
winning  my  friendship  permanently  —  and  maybe  more  —  as 
any  man  I  know  now  or  ever  will  know.  In  fact,  you've 
got  a  bit  of  advantage,  because  I  know  you  will  have  over 
come  more  handicaps." 

"Madge,  is  there  any  one  else  who " 

"Who  loves  me?  I  don't  know,  Gordon.  I  have  many 
men  friends  and  go  about  much." 

"Is  there  any  one  whom  you  love?  It's  a  rotten  thing 
to  ask  but  —  hang  it  all,  I'm  —  jealous!" 

What  was  the  little  heart-pinch  that  came  to  Madeline 
then  ?  Why  should  her  thoughts  flee  secretly  to  some  torn 
pieces  of  paper  in  an  envelope  in  her  bottom  dresser 
drawer  ? 

"Not  enough  to  marry,  Gordon.  That's  as  far  as  I  want 
to  be  interrogated." 

"Madge!     Have  I  got  a  chance?" 

The  girl  smiled,  a  wonderful  smile. 

"All  the  chance  in  the  world,  Gordon.  Go  through  with 
this  thing  and  you'll  prove  yourself  a  man!" 

"Madge!  There  never  was  a  woman  like  you.  There'll 
never  be  another." 

"Fiddlesticks!  The  world  is  filled  with  women  like 
myself !" 

"Then  they  don't  move  on  the  strata  where  the  fellows 
who  need  them  most  can  contact  them." 

Madelaine  left  the  contention  open.  She  was  thinking 
about  Gordon's  language.  He  had  always  talked  like  a 


296  THE  FOG 

street  gamin  despite  his  home  culture.  Now  his  vocabulary 
was  more  refined,  far  more  careful. 

It  was  an  hour  before  he  arose  to  go. 

"Madge,"  he  said  at  the  door,  "you're  never  going  to 
practice,  even  if  you  graduate  from  medical  school." 

"Why  not,  Gordon?  What  makes  you  think  so?"  She 
was  amused. 

"There  are  too  many  men  who  need  you  in  a  slightly 
different  capacity  than  doling  out  pills!" 

She  was  glad  when  the  door  had  closed  on  him  that  he 
had  not  said,  "Because  I  want  you  and  intend  to  marry 
you  myself !" 

Poor  Gordon!  Perhaps  he  too  had  been  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning. 

Madelaine  went  back  to  her  chair  and  remained  for  a 
long  time  in  thought. 

"I  can't  let  myself  drift  into  it  —  I  can't.  I  can't!  Oh, 
dear,  where  can  I  go,  what  can  I  do,  to  escape  it?  Will 
I  marry  him  after  all?  Will  his  persistence  win  in  the 
end?" 

Tears  filmed  her  eyes.  She  had  felt  that  strange  pinch 
in  her  heart  again,  remembering  the  envelope  in  the  drawer. 

"I  want  a  man  who  has  won  out  in  spite  of  everything!" 
she  cried.  "Never  mind  how  Gordon  wins  out,  he  will  not 
have  won  out  over  enough !" 

She  wondered  while  dressing  for  dinner  that  night  if 
Nathaniel  Forge  had  come  through  that  jail  scrape  "with 
a  clean  bill  of  health." 


CHAPTER  IV 

POOR   SOW'S    EAR 


We  hear  much  comment  about  Genius  in  this  clay-and- 
paint  age.  Mediocrity  is  amazed  that  there  can  be  persons 
capable  of  doing  many  things  and  doing  them  exceptionally 
well.  It  fails  to  grasp  that  the  same  brain  power  and 
caliber  which  makes  a  success  of  a  specialty  can  be  turned 
with  equal  success  into  any  line  of  endeavor  and  approxi 
mate  the  same  general  result. 

Nathan  had  gone  on  the  road  for  the  Thorne  Knitting 
Mills  as  a  traveling  salesman.  He  had  business  experience ; 
he  had  brains  whetted  by  dilemmas  in  the  box-shop.  But 
most  of  all  he  had  imagination.  And  that  same  imagination, 
whether  applied  to  poetry,  paper  boxes  or  the  sale  of  union 
suits,  brought  the  same  satisfying  result. 

My  friend  started  at  "two  thousand  a  year  and  commis 
sion."  His  territory  was  eastern  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey 
and  a  portion  of  middle  New  York.  At  the  end  of  his 
first  year  he  had  realized  four  thousand  dollars  and  Milly 
wondered  if  her  prospects  were  not  looking  up  and  she 
hadn't  been  a  bit  wrong  about  that  business  of  being  bun 
coed?  Four  thousand  a  year  is  nearly  eighty  dollars  a 
week.  The  Forges  left  the  Pine  Street  cottage  and  took 
a  better  house  on  Preston  Hill.  And  Nathan  did  a  manly 
thing.  He  started  the  task  of  making  the  poor  mill  girl 
he  had  married  into  a  lady.  He  began  by  taking  Milly 
with  him  on  some  of  his  trips  and  letting  her  see  life  outside 
a  drab  Vermont  country  town. 

New  York  was  a  revelation  to  Milly.  She  had  always 
been  a  frump  in  her  dress,  but  Fifth  Avenue  kindled  a 
spark  of  incentive  in  her,  and  under  Nat's  gentle  encour 
agement,  she  honestly  tried  to  make  something  of  herself. 
She  came  back  to  Paris  full  of  ideas  and  aspirations.  And 


298  THE  FOG 

give  her  credit.  The  first  thing  she  did  was  to  junk  all 
the  jumble  of  assorted  furniture,  get  rid  of  her  Woolworth 
trimmings  and  try  to  Be  Somebody. 

Try  to  Be  Somebody !  Oh,  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave, 
when  first  we  practice  to  —  try  to  be  somebody ! 

Anyhow,  the  Forges  refurnished  their  house  and  Milly's 
pride  in  its  altered  appearance  was  such  that  she  put  down 
her  foot  on  all  her  relatives  treating  it  like  their  personal 
ash  box.  Thereupon  the  Richards  family,  individually  and 
collectively,  turned  up  their  noses  and  averred  that  Mildred 
was  trying  to  be  tony  and  put  on  style  and  be  a  snob.  Her 
mother  "just  ran  up"  one  spring  day  and  asked  to  borrow 
ten  dollars.  For  the  first  time  in  their  lives  Milly  de 
manded  to  know  what  the  money  was  wanted  for.  When 
Mother  Richards  announced  that  as  usual  Popper  was  out 
of  work  and  Sarah  wanted  a  new  dress  to  wear  to  the 
Knights  of  Columbus  Dance  on  St.  Patrick's  day,  Milly 
told  her  mother  that  if  Sarah  wanted  a  new  dress  let  her 
stick  to  her  job  in  the  Bon  Ton  and  earn  it,  not  get  peeved 
at  Miss  Morgan  and  quit  whenever  the  proprietress  wanted 
her  to  work  overtime.  Mother  Richards  departed,  fully 
persuaded  that  in  her  case  also,  no  serpent's  tooth  is  sharper 
than  an  ungrateful  child. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  was,  Milly  had  found  some  House 
Beautiful  magazines  with  "classy  interiors"  illustrated 
therein  and  was  straining  Nathan's  pay  envelope  to  get 
the  wherewithal  to  buy  a  set  of  Heppelwhite  furniture  for 
her  dining  room.  It  was  no  especial  consideration  for  her 
husband  that  made  her  turn  down  her  mother.  Her  motive 
was  entirely  selfish.  Also  I  learned  later  that  whereas  I 
had  lately  taken  unto  myself  a  wife,  Milly  wanted  to  awe 
me  with  the  "class"  in  her  home  and  prove  to  Nathan  he 
had  annexed  a  more  aristocratic  helpmate  than  had  been 
acquired  by  his  lifelong  friend. 


II 

Anna  Forge,  as  usual,  had  not  found  life  any  bed  of 
roses.  She  had  managed  to  retain  the  property  on  Vermont 
Avenue  but  at  a  disturbing  price.  For  she  discovered  that 
whereas  property  was  property  and  the  house  was  appraised 


POOR  SOW'S  EAR  299 

on  the  tax  list  at  ten  thousand  dollars,  yet  even  a  ten- 
thousand-dollar  house  did  not  stand  for  the  epitome  of 
worldly  wealth  and  affluence  when  there  were  no  funds 
forthcoming  to  pay  those  taxes,  keep  up  repairs,  heat  the 
place  and  give  her  the  wherewithal  to  feel  and  clothe  herself 
so  she  could  reside  therein.  She  had  to  sell  the  house  and 
furnishings,  retaining  only  enough  of  the  latter  to  make  two 
rooms  livable  in  the  top  of  the  Nor  walk  block  where  she 
finally  sat  down  in  her  loneliness  and  meditated  darkly  on 
the  ingratitude  of  all  flesh. 

In  July  an  alluring  oil  prospectus  fell  into  her  hands. 
Without  consulting  her  son,  fully  expectant  of  realizing 
a  fortune  within  three  months  —  the  prospectus  inferred 
that  she  would  —  she  gave  up  all  but  a  few  hundreds  of 
dollars  for  some  sheets  of  beautifully  lithographed  paper 
delivered  by  a  well-dressed  young  man  who  had  "a  nice 
face." 

Edith  in  Montreal  had  presented  her  husband  with 
triplets!  The  husband  had  seen  no  advantage  in  triplets, 
however,  and  had  been  inclined  to  act  peevish.  Anna  sent 
Edith  five  hundred  of  the  remaining  nine  hundred  dollars 
"to  help  out  dear  daughter."  And  dear  daughter's  husband 
had  commandeered  the  money,  played  a  bucket  shop  and 
taken  a  better  job  down  in  Pennsylvania. 

In  September  Anna  Forge  was  reduced  to  seventy-nine 
dollars.  Where  the  balance  had  gone  the  Lord  only  knew. 
Thereupon  her  thoughts  turned  to  her  better  half  who  had 
"skun  out  and  left  her  to  starve"  and  she  brought  her  trou 
bles  to  Nathan,  the  idea  being  that  Nathan  should  get  the  law 
after  his  father  and  have  him  brought  back  and  made  to 
support  his  wife. 

But  threescore  wrathful  stockholders  and  two  national 
banks  had  also  voted  that  Johnathan  should  be  apprehended 
and  brought  back,  quite  a  time  before.  The  difficulty  in 
both  cases  had  been  that  neither  knew  exactly  where  to  go 
to  apprehend  Johnathan  and  bring  him  back.  So  Johnathan 
had  not  been  brought  back  and  the  matter  languished. 

By  October,  unbeknown  to  Milly,  Nathan  was  mailing 
his  mother  a  few  dollars  a  week  for  her  food  and  room 
rent.  When  he  came  in  off  the  road  he  occasionally  brought 
her  new  clothes.  Mrs.  Forge  was  grateful  for  the  clothing 
but  felt  it  would  have  been  "nicer"  in  Nathan  to  give  her 


300  THE  FOG 

the  money  and  let  her  buy  her  clothes  herself.    But  Nathan 
wanted  the  money  to  go  for  clothes. 

She  talked  quite  a  lot  about  it,  and  not  within  the  im 
mediate  family  circle,  either. 


ni 

In  November,  when  the  Forge  house  was  furnished  after 
some  of  the  most  gorgeous  and  least  expensive  plans  in 
House  Beautiful,  Milly  and  Nathan  sent  my  wife  and  self 
an  invitation  to  "come  up  some  night  and  have  dinner." 
Mary  Ann  had  made  a  wry  face.  But  for  Nathan's  sake  — 
with  whose  vicissitudes  she  had  become  more  or  less 
acquainted  —  she  finally  consented. 

Milly  had  acquired  a  certain  middle-class  pride  in  her 
establishment  by  this  time.  But  it  was  the  narrow,  pathetic, 
provincial,  poorly  bred  sort  of  pride  which  is  ofttimes 
the  worst  vulgarity,  since  it  admits  a  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  etiquette  but  refuses  to  reason  it  out  or  work 
out  the  finesse  of  detail  which  makes  living  on  a  certain 
well-mannered,  soft-toned,  fine-grained  plane  an  existence 
of  beauty  and  a  joy  forever. 

Milly's  idea  of  serving  a  perfect  meal  was  bulk  —  attuned 
to  brilliance.  But  in  the  fine  epicurean  points  of  house 
wifery,  she  was  as  sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal. 
She  was  careful  to  procure  a  three-dollar  roast,  cook  it  to 
the  best  of  her  ability  (and  Farmers  Cook  Book)  bedeck 
it  with  pretty  garnishes,  and,  —  let  it  set  around  some 
where  until  it  was  clammy  and  greasy  as  cold-storage  goose 
and  about  as  delectable.  She  worked  hard  to  get  the  appro 
priate  flowers  for  a  centerpiece  and  forgot  the  butter  plates. 
She  would  spend  half  an  afternoon  preparing  a  lavish 
dessert,  and  by  the  time  it  came  to  the  table  the  hour  was 
so  late  and  so  much  that  was  over-hearty  had  gone  before, 
that  her  guests  could  only  nibble  at  it.  Then  she  accused 
them  of  not  liking  it  or  rinding  something  the  matter  with 
it.  She  wept  angrily  when  she  was  finally  alone  and  de 
clared  "she  wouldn't  get  up  another  feed  for  nobody"  if 
the  whole  world  starved.  Poor  Milly!  It  was  a  hectic 
thing,  —  Trying  to  Be  Somebody ! 

Well,   Mary  Ann  and   I   went  up  to   Nathan's.     Little 


POOR  SOW'S  EAR  301 

Mary,  their  child,  was  about  six  years  of  age  at  the  time, 
a  red-cheeked,  obstreperous  little  bumpkin  who  meant  well 
enough  but  never  knew  exactly  what  it  was  she  was  sup 
posed  to  mean.  Immediately  we  got  into  the  house,  Milly 
and  her  child  viewed  us  as  "company"  and  acquired  that 
same  old  agonizing  woodenness  of  the  lowly-born  known 
as  "remembering  their  manners." 

Milly  came  to  greet  us  cordially  enough,  then  excused 
herself  to  oversee  preparations  for  her  dinner  in  the  kitchen. 
Nathan  led  us  into  the  living  room.  Through  the  archway 
into  the  dining  room  I  could  not  help  noting  a  profusion 
of  white  linen,  silver,  cut  glass  and  flowers.  But  the  savor 
of  the  forthcoming  meal  was  strong  through  the  house, 
along  with  something  which  has  scorched  acridly.  To  close 
the  door  between  dining  room  and  kitchen  never  occurred  to 
Milly.  It  was  her  house,  wasn't  it?  What  did  a  door  or 
two  matter?  From  my  position  at  table  when  we  were 
subsequently  placed,  I  sat  throughout  the  meal  with  a 
kitchen  vista  before  me  in  a  chaotic  mass  of  pots,  pans, 
kettles  and  paper  bags,  all  but  the  bags  greasy  and  sooty 
and  piled  in  the  sink  in  plain  sight  over  Milly's  shoulder. 

In  the  interval  before  dinner,  however,  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  we  were  ostensibly  there  to  visit  her  parents, 
little  Mary  assumed  that  it  devolved  upon  her  to  entertain 
us.  Which  she  did  in  all  childish  innocence  and  utter  good 
intention,  but  which  became  quickly  embarrassing  even  to 
the  point  of  wholesome  exasperation. 

We  had  not  been  in  the  place  four  minutes  before  she 
dug  up  dolls,  doll  carriages,  toy  houses  and  games  and 
insisted  that  we  interest  ourselves  in  all  of  them.  Again 
and  again  Nathan  reprimanded  her  or  sent  her  out.  Back 
she  would  come  in  a  moment  with  the  utmost  self-assur 
ance.  "Mamma  says  I  can !"  she  explained  to  her  father 
each  time  and  finally  shoved  a  primer  in  my  face  with  the 
persistent  demand,  did  I  want  to  hear  her  read?  Now  I 
like  youngsters  and  so  does  Mary  Ann.  But  God  knows 
there's  a  time  and  place  for  everything,  even  children. 
And  little  Mary  soon  got  on  my  nerves.  Nathan  tried  to 
"save  his  face"  and  send  her  out  as  patiently  and  kindly  as 
he  could.  But  Mary  continued  to  run  appealing  to  her 
mother  and  demanded  to  know  if  "Uncle  Billy  couldn't 
hear  her  read?"  and  I  overheard  Milly  retort  "Certainly!" 


302  THE  FOG 

as  though  astonished  that  any  one  might  not  want  to  hear 
a  first-grade  reading  lesson  as  prelude  to  a  five-course 
dinner.  So  back  came  Mary,  poked  up  into  my  arms,  con 
veyed  kitchen  flour  all  over  my  clothes  and  started  to  out- 
talk  her  father  with  such  asinine  twaddle  as,  "I  see  a  cat. 
Can  the  cat  run?  Yes,  the  cat  can  run.  It  is  a  black  cat. 
Oh,  see  the  pretty  kittens."  Etc.,  etc.,  etc.  • 

Nathan  colored,  grew  grim  of  lip,  ordered  the  child 
from  the  room  in  no  mild  tone.  And  little  Mary  started 
for  the  kitchen  with  a  sudden,  high-pitched,  heart-broken 
bawl.  In  the  kitchen  she  stayed  permanently  this  time,  to 
bounce  back  a  few  moments  later,  loll  at  the  corner  of  the 
doorway  and  announce: 

"Ma  says  to  come  and  eat  while  everything's  hot  be 
cause  food  ain't  no  good  when  it's  cold."  On  the  strength 
of  this  startling  information,  we  went  into  the  dining  room. 
Thereupon  we  had  more  Child.  "I  wanner  sit  side  o' 
Uncle  Billy!  Ma  says  I  can!  Pa,  I  wanner  sit  side  of 
Uncle  Billy!"  And  when  she  had  ascertained  for  a  cer 
tainty  that  she  could  sit  side  of  Uncle  Billy,  she  danced 
around  the  table,  pointing  out  each  of  our  places  and  then 
dragged  a  high  chair  noisily  from  the  opposite  end  of 
the  room  over  between  Nathan  and  myself.  There  was  also 
some  confusion  about  the  transfer  of  a  patent-rimmed 
infant's  plate,  a  mug,  a  spoon,  a  napkin. 

Nathan  sent  an  appealing  glance  at  his  wife. 

"Oh,  leave  the  child  alone!"  cried  Milly  wearily,  in  front 
of  her  guests.  "You're  always  picking  on  her;  she  never 
does  anything  that  suits  you."  And  so  Nathan  "left  the 
child  alone."  But  it  was  noisily  incumbent  on  me  to  lift 
her  into  her  high  chair  and  tie  her  bib.  Thereupon  little 
Mary  started  to  "make  music"  with  the  cutlery  on  the  edge 
of  her  plate  and  announce  to  us  of  what  the  forthcoming 
meal  was  to  consist. 

"Start  right  in,  folks,"  Milly  invited.  "I've  got  some 
things  to  see  to  upstairs  before  I  can  eat,"  and  she  went 
above  to  dress,  leaving  her  husband  and  guests  to  await 
her  return  or  eat  without  her,  also  leaving  a  little  girl  who 
suddenly  remembered  her  "manners",  sat  with  her  hands 
folded  school-fashion  on  the  edge  of  her  plate  and  allevi 
ated  the  distressing  pauses  by  entertaining  us  with  choice 
bits  of  household  information,  such  as:  that  Ma  had  on  all 


POOR  SOW'S  EAR  303 

her  best  dishes;  such  as:  that  the  green  pitcher  came  from 
the  five-and-ten ;  such  as:  that  Ma  came  near  not  puttin' 
on  that  pickled  preserve  because  when  she  opened  the  jar 
and  smelled  it,  she  thought  it  had  spoiled;  such  as-— oh, 
bother ! 

Poor  Nathan!  He  sat  with  the  steaming  food  before 
him  and  then  said  thickly,  "She'll  probably  be  a  considerable 
time.  Perhaps  we  hadn't  better  wait."  But  I  knew  he 
was  wondering  why  his  wife  could  not  have  negotiated  her 
wardrobe  before  our  arrival  and  thrown  off  a  mere  apron 
or  something  of  the  sort,  to  do  the  honors  of  her  table. 

Little  Mary  cried  shrilly  above  my  wife's  attempt  at 
sympathetic  conversation  with  Nathan  to  inform  her  father 
what  particular  portion  of  the  roast  she  desired  and  what 
vegetables  and  what  drinkables.  Finally  Nat  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  Milly  being  out  of  earshot,  he  frankly  apolo 
gized  for  the  child.  But  I  read  behind  his  apology  the 
heartache  of  a  tired  man  who  did  his  best  to  train  his 
child  as  opportunity  offered  and  he  himself  had  enlighten 
ment.  But  a  man  at  business  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  time 
may  easily  have  much  good  work  discounted  by  a  child's 
propinquity  with  an  unbred  mother.  He  ended  finally  by 
telling  the  child  that  another  word  from  it  would  earn 
instant  dismissal  from  the  board.  That  worked  admirably 
until  Milly's  appearance  when  the  roast  was  almost  finished. 
Little  Mary  then  recounted  to  her  mother  what  her  father 
had  instructed  her,  etc.,  etc. 

I  will  forbear  a  detailed  account  of  that  dinner.  It  was 
an  ordeal.  The  table  was  crammed  with  dishes,  there  was 
no  one  to  take  away  emptied  plates  and  nowhere  to  set 
them.  Nathan  had  to  arise  and  take  them  away  himself. 
Twice  little  tyfary  scrambled  down  and  followed  him  into 
the  kitchen,  leaving  Mary  Ann  and  myself  alone  and  feeling 
rather  foolish. 

Mary  Ann  settled  down  into  an  hour  of  agony.  Little 
Mary  pushed  her  food  upon  her  broad  fork  with  her 
fingers.  She  threw  back  her  head  and  sucked  the  last 
drop  from  her  water  glass.  She  arose  in  her  high  chair, 
would  have  stood  upon  it  and  reached  for  her  own  butter 
if  Nathan  had  not  stopped  her.  Milly  was  in  her  place 
by  this  time  and  Nathan  asked  her  if  she  couldn't  "see  to 
little  Mary."  Whereat  Milly  smoothed  back  the  child's 


304  THE  FOG 

hair,  fiddled  with  a  hairpin  to  twine  the  hair  up  from  the 
child's  eyes,  patted  it  and  said  bless  her,  she  was  mother's 
little  daughter,  wasn't  she,  and  was  remembering  her  man 
ners,  wasn't  she,  too;  and  little  Mary  agreed  that  she  was 
remembering  her  manners  and  demanded  to  know  if  mamma 
had  yet  "let  on"  to  Uncle  Billy  that  they  had  ice  cream 
among  other  items  for  dessert. 

The  dessert  came  at  last,  about  the  time  when  I  was 
wondering  if  Mary  Ann  were  going  to  live  to  partake  of  it. 

"We've  got  some  cheese,  that  horribly  smelly  kind  that 
Nat  likes  so  well,  if  anybody  wants  any  of  it  but  him," 
was  Milly's  final  comment  anent  a  most  delectable  Camem- 
bert. 

"Yeah!"  piped  up  Mary.  "And  it  comes  in  a  wooden 
box  and  when  you  take  the  cover  off  it,  you  could  almost 
think  there  was  sompin'  dead  inside  it!" 

We  got  away  from  the  table. 

Mary  Ann  went  home  and  to  bed,  and  if  I  could  have 
spared  the  time,  I  would  have  had  Doctor  Johnson  "fix  me 
up"  too. 

What  was  it  Nathan  had  told  himself  that  night  in  the 
office  when  he  had  gazed  upon  Milly  after  the  Carol  Gardner 
disappointment  ?  —  Something  about  "one  woman  being  as 
good  as  another  ?"  Sex  versus  Ladyhood. 

"The  trouble  with  most  young  colts  who  fly  into  matri 
mony  with  the  first  exhibit  of  the  sex  that  sashays  along, 
is  that  they  seem  to  forget  they're  gonna  have  thirty  to 
fifty  years  of  it,"  comments  Uncle  Joe  Fodder,  when  he 
hears  of  some  particularly  rash  marriage  about  the  village. 
"If  a  feller  can't  be  good,  b'dam,  why  can't  he  be  careful?" 


IV 

Milly  gave  it  out  that  Mary  Ann  was  snobbish  and 
"stuck  up",  that  she  couldn't  be  sociable  and  neighborly 
if  it  cost  her  a  leg  —  because  she  never  accepted  another  in 
vitation  from  Milly  —  and  her  personal  opinion  was  that 
Nathan's  bosom  friend  had  married  a  "quince." 

Mary  Ann  gave  a  dinner  party  for  a  number  of  the 
summer  colonists  on  Preston  Hill  shortly  afterward  and 
neglected  to  invite  Milly. 


POOR  SOW'S  EAR  305 

"After  me  about  breakin'  my  neck  to  give  her  that  swell 
feed  to  our  house  in  March !"  lamented  Milly.  "She's  a 
cat  and  I  hope  she  chokes  on  her  own  cream." 

Nathan  never  referred  to  the  dinner  thereafter,  however. 


CHAPTER  V 

ALWAYS    JUSTIFIED 


The  Grand  Hotel  in  Yokohama,  Japan,  is  built  close  to 
the  edge  of  Tokio  Bay.  Only  the  width  of  a  macadam 
street  separates  it  from  a  walled  embankment  with  a  twenty- 
foot  drop  down  to  the  harbor  water.  It  is  a  long,  red 
building  with  a  wide  portico  running  the  entire  length  of 
the  eastern  side.  Tourists  from  the  seven  corners  of  the 
earth  sit  before  the  great,  opened  windows  and  gaze  across 
the  blue  waters  where  outgoing  liners  are  heading  for  home. 

In  a  wicker  lounging  chair  before  one  of  those  great 
windows  at  twilight  of  an  August  day  in  1916  sat  an 
oldish  man  with  weak,  watery  eyes  and  a  petulant  mouth. 
He  was  dressed  in  white  pongee,  somewhat  rumpled,  and 
in  his  lap  he  toyed  with  a  wide-brimmed  Panama  hat.  His 
eyes  were  far  away;  he  too  was  thinking  of  those  liners, 
outward  bound,  heading  for  home.  Home! 

Johnathan  Forge  had  never  had  a  home.  Or  so  he  told 
himself.  A  house,  a  wife,  children,  expense,  all  these,  yes! 
But  a  home,  never !  It  was  his  wife's  fault.  She  had  never 
been  a  home-maker  from  the  beginning. 

His  thoughts  turned  backward  this  August  afternoon  — 
back  to  America  —  New  England  —  Vermont !  He  won 
dered  about  the  people  he  had  known  so  long  and  so  inti 
mately  there.  What  had  happened  after  he  left  them?  How 
had  they  fared  ?  What  were  they  doing  —  now  —  this  after 
noon —  this  moment? 

Johnathan  Forge  believed  that  life  had  given  him  a 
scurvy  deal. 

His  father  had  made  him  work  from  earliest  boyhood 
and  he  had  turned  over  his  wages  to  his  parents  until  the 
day  and  the  night  he  was  twenty-one.  That  following 
year  he  had  married  —  married  Anna  Farman.  She  had 


ALWAYS  JUSTIFIED  307 

clerked  in  the  same  store  where  Johnathan  had  been  a 
sort  of  all-around  handy  man  and  shipping  clerk.  He  had 
been  very  much  in  love  with  her,  or  thought  he  was.  Yet 
almost  from  the  first  night  he  had  discovered  that  between 
his  mother  and  his  wife  a  gulf  existed  as  wide  as  China. 
His  father's  life  had  been  happy  because  his  mother  was 
a  conscientious  Christian  woman.  She  knew  how  to  keep 
her  place. 

His  father  had  been  absolute  lord  and  Czar  of  the  Forge 
family  fortunes.  No  one  ever  presumed  to  question  that 
such  was  not  his  right.  His  mother  had  never  scoffed  at 
St.  Paul's  injunction  anent  wives  submitting  themselves 
unto  their  husbands  as  unto  the  law  of  God.  Mrs.  Forge, 
his  mother,  had  taken  note  of  St.  Paul  and  rather  approved 
of  him,  following  his  domestic  admonitions  without  question. 
The  result  had  been  peace  and  happiness;  at  least  there 
had  never  been  any  disgraceful  quarreling  or  contention 
between  wife  and  husband  in  the  home  of  his  father.  The 
husband  had  laid  down  the  law  and  the  wife  had  obeyed. 
It  was  simple.  Was  he  not  the  husband  and  father?  Why 
shouldn't  she  obey?  Happy?  What  greater  happiness 
could  a  woman  desire  than  obeying  her  husband,  submitting 
to  him  as  unto  the  law  of  God?  At  least,  when  women  did 
that  sort  of  thing,  domestic  peace  and  connubial  bliss  re 
sulted.  Anna  Farman  had  not  done  that  sort  of  thing  and 
showed  she  had  not  the  least  intent  in  the  world  of  doing 
that  sort  of  thing.  She  had  married  and  then  promptly 
declared  she  intended  to  preserve  her  own  individuality 
and  do  as  she  pleased.  It  was  plain  therefore  what  chaos 
and  misery  ensued  when  any  one  —  especially  woman  — 
flouted  the  decrees  of  the  Almighty,  His  seers,  His 
prophets  and  His  saints. 

Not  only  had  Anna  refused  to  obey  her  husband  but 
she  had  early  shown  herself  extravagant  and  impractical. 
At  first  she  had  wanted  shoes,  clothes,  hats  for  every  season 
of  the  year.  Think  of  a  woman  with  four  hats!  Or  four 
pairs  of  shoes !  Why,  his  own  mother  had  worn  one  hat 
three  years,  done  it  cheerfully,  thought  nothing  of  it! 
Anna  had  quarreled  with  Johnathan  over  the  subject  of 
clothing  so  bitterly  that  the  young  husband  might  have  left 
her  the  first  year,  if  a  baby  had  not  been  coming.  After 
that  he  was  in  for  it.  There  was  no  hope,  no  escape.  And 


308  THE  FOG 

for  twenty-five  years  he  had  endured  it.  Twenty-five  years ! 
A  quarter-century!  To  think  of  it!  What  a  fool  he  had 
been!  What  a  fool! 

A  year  of  foreign  travel  —  illicit  though  it  might  have 
been  considered  in  certain  obnoxious  quarters  —  had  changed 
Johnathan  in  many  ways,  however.  For  one  thing,  it  had 
radically  revised  his  ideas  about  God.  The  myriad  millions 
of  Asia,  in  their  sordid,  gnat-like  existence,  had  caused  him 
to  wonder  just  how  "personal"  God  really  was.  Anyhow, 
his  conscience  was  clear  about  leaving  home  in  so  far  as  God 
was  concerned. 

In  the  first  place,  he  had  done  his  full  duty  by  his 
children.  He  had  given  them  a  home,  food  for  their  grow 
ing  bodies,  clothes  for  their  backs.  He  had  made  them 
attend  divine  services,  he  had  kept  their  morals  clean  and 
their  minds  .pure.  It  had  been  an  awful  ordeal  to  keep 
Nathan  away  from  The  Sex.  Still  he  had  managed  it. 
That  Nathan  had  promptly  married  at  twenty-one  had  noth 
ing  to  do  with  Johnathan.  Johnathan  had  only  been  re 
sponsible  for  the  boy  until  maturity.  Not  one  moment 
after !  The  boy  had  become  a  man  then.  He  had  passed 
out  of  the  father's  jurisdiction.  If  he  had  made  a  hard 
bed,  let  him  lie  in  it,  indeed.  It  only  went  to  show  he 
should  have  taken  his  loving  father's  counsel  to  heart. 

As  for  leaving  his  wife,  they  had  nothing  in  common, 
with  the  children  married.  Why,  then,  should  they  live  to 
gether?  Beside,  had  he  not  left  her  in  undisputed  posses 
sion  of  a  ten-thousand-dollar  house?  Let  her  sell  that 
house  if  she  so  desired  and  live  on  the  money.  Ten  thou 
sand  dollars  should  keep  her  the  rest  of  her  life.  In  fact, 
Johnathan  flattered  himself  he  had  done  rather  handsomely 
by  his  wife.  No  cause  for  self -execration  there!  Then 
how  about  the  box-shop  ?  Ah,  yes !  The  box-shop ! 

Well,  it  was  this  way:  In  the  beginning  he  had  saved 
eighteen  hundred  dollars  of  hard-earned  money  in  spite 
of  his  wife's  spendthrift  habits,  and  bought  the  box-shop. 
He  had  obligated  himself  for  thirty-two  hundred  dollars 
more  in  notes.  And,  thank  God,  somehow  he  had  paid 
them.  But  it  had  been  with  his  own  money,  before  he 
turned  the  factory  over  to  the  corporation  and  accepted 
stock. 

He  had  been  very  clever  in  that  transfer.    He  had  taken 


ALWAYS  JUSTIFIED  309 

thirteen  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  stock  for  the  five  thou 
sand  equity  he  had  originally  held  in  the  business;  well, 
it  belonged  to  him.  If  he  was  cute  on  a  trade,  it  was  the 
other  fellow's  fault  if  the  other  fellow  didn't  watch  out 
and  found  himself  cheated.  Then  had  come  those  hectic 
years  when  his  boy's  ramifications  had  "grayed  his  hair." 
Johnathan  never  thought  of  them  but  what  he  grew  angry, 
even  in  his  exile.  What  he  had  suffered  from  that  boy  — 
his  crazy  ideas,  his  impertinence  —  his  insolence,  his  refusal 
to  "go  into  conference"  with  his  father  for  the  good  of  the 
business  —  his  hot-headed,  know-it-all,  don't-give-a-damn 
attitude  toward  the  one  in  all  the  world  who  had  done  so 
much  for  him!  How  had  the  father  ever  "stuck  them 
out"  —  those  years  ?  But  he  had  stuck  them  out.  And  he 
had  only  left  the  whole  miserable  mess  when  it  was  self- 
evident  that  the  unnatural  son's  bigotry  and  business  in 
ability  were  going  to  pile  his  beautiful  business  on  the 
rocks  at  last.  That  was  only  the  first  law  of  nature, — 
self-preservation.  Even  rats  desert  a  sinking  ship,  and 
how  much  more  sensible  and  intelligent  should  grown  men 
show  themselves  than  rats !  Yet  what  had  he  taken  from 
that  business  that  was  not  due  him?  That  was  not  his 
own?  He  had  sold  his  five-thousand-dollar  concern  for 
thirteen  thousand  dollars.  Very  good!  All  he  had  with 
drawn  at  the  last  was  ten  thousand  dollars.  Not  a  penny 
more;  ten  thousand  dollars!  Three  thousand  less  than  the 
value  of  his  stock.  And  to  show  he  had  no  criminal  intent, 
he  had  duly  made  out  and  endorsed  his  certificates  back  to 
the  company  —  back  to  the  corporation's  treasurer  —  and 
left  them  on  Nathan's  desk  for  transfer.  Very  good,  then! 
He  had  simply  decided  he  would  rather  have  his  money 
than  the  stock  and  made  the  swap.  Nothing  crooked  about 
that!  If  he  had  carried  away  the  certificates  with  him  and 
the  money — ah,  then  he  would  be  a  criminal  in  sight  of 
God  and  man.  But  he  had  simply  been  shrewd.  If  his 
boy  was  so  tarnation  smart,  let  him  sell  the  father's  stock 
to  some  one  about  the  village  and  use  the  money  to  reim 
burse  the  company  for  what  Johnathan  had  taken.  That 
the  "Board  of  Directors"  had  not  sanctioned  such  a  pur 
chase  from  the  treasury  was  nothing  to  Johnathan.  Who 
were  the  "Board"  but  Nathan  and  Charley  Newton  and 
Peter  Whipple  of  the  Process  Works  and  one  or  two 


310  THE  FOG 

others?  They  never  would  have  understood  Johnathan's 
domestic  position  anyhow,  or  appreciated  why  he  should 
want  to  leave  home  forever.  How  could  they  know  the 
indignities  and  quarrels  which  had  been  his  portion  for 
twenty-five  dreary  years?  What  was  the  mere  technicality 
of  recording  such  a  transfer  on  the  books,  anyway?  If 
he  had  told  them  first,  they  would  only  have  objected;  and 
he  would  have  had  to  hold  a  meeting  and  use  his  stock- 
control  to  club  them  into  it.  That  would  have  aroused  the 
banks  and  "pulled  down  the  temple,"  making  the  stock 
worthless. 

No,  Johnathan  had  only  exercised  ordinary  Yankee 
shrewdness.  And  yet 

The  great,  bothersome,  indefatigable  fact  remained  that 
the  banks  and  Paris  investors  would  never  see  the  deal  in 
the  light  in  which  Johnathan  saw  it  himself.  He  could  not 
go  home! 

Not  that  he  wanted  to  go  home,  of  course.  But  still, 
he  could  not  go  home.  And  it  bothered  him. 

Likewise  there  was  the  Carlysle  woman.  Great,  fine, 
much-to-be-desired  romance  had  come  into  Johnathan's  life 
at  last. 

And  if  he  married  her,  still  more  emphatically  than  ever 
he  could  not  go  home.  He  would  be  guilty  of  bigamy, 
and  the  authorities  in  the  States  —  who  could  never  appre 
ciate  what  a  hard  time  Johnathan  had  endured  through 
twenty-five  hectic  years  —  had  very  strict  ideas  about 
bigamy.  And  some  day  Mrs.  Johnathan  Forge,  nee  Carlysle, 
might  want  to  go  home.  Then  how  could  he  explain  ?  What 
could  he  do? 

Johnathan  sighed  and  sloughed  down  in  his  chair.  After 
all  these  years,  happiness  was  within  his  grasp  and  he  could 
not  grasp  it.  The  world  was  very  hard.  Hard!  Hard! 
Hard! 

There  were  other  crosses  in  it,  after  all,  besides  Nathan. 


n 

Nathan  went  up  to  the  desk  and  the  Yates  Hotel  in 
Syracuse  and  asked  for  his  key  and  his  mail. 

He  received  a  postcard  from  Milly  —  asking  him  to  send 


ALWAYS  JUSTIFIED  311 

her  money  —  a  telephone  and  a  gas  bill  which  had  been  for 
warded  for  payment,  a  letter  from  young  Ted  Thorne,  his 
sales  manager,  and  a  long  narrow  envelope  with  a  queer 
stamp.  Nathan  was  puzzled  by  that  stamp.  It  was  a  ten- 
sen  stamp.  What  foreign  country  had  sen  among  their  coin 
age  and  who  should  be  writing  him  from  one  of  them? 

He  slit  the  envelope  at  the  cigar  counter  while  the  clerk 
waited  for  him  to  select  his  smokes  from  a  proffered  hand 
ful.  Then  a  queer,  hard  surprise  smote  him  as  he  read : 

Yokohama,  Japan, 
August  2,  1916. 
Nathaniel  Forge, 

Paris,  Vt,  U.  S.  A. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  write  to  you  from  a  foreign  land,  afar  from  home,  and  an 
exile  from  all  I  hold  most  dear.  My  life  almost  wrecked  by 
a  brainless  woman  and  thankless,  unnatural  children,  here  I  sit 
in  the  forty-eighth  year  of  my  age,  trying  not  to  see  the  awful 
past,  only  to  pierce  the  unknown  future,  and  give  you  one  last 
chance  to  redeem  yourself  and  call  down  upon  your  head  your 
father's  blessing. 

You  are  perfectly  aware,  Nathaniel,  of  what  my  domestic  life 
was,  for  twenty-five  fearful  years.  You,  grown  now  to  man's 
estate,  realize  that  your  father  showed  the  mettle  and  stamina 
to  endure  blindly  for  conscience'  sake  and  from  his  sense  of 
great,  grim  duty.  If  your  rattle-brained  marriage  has  turned 
out  happily,  you  know  what  your  devoted  father  missed.  If  it 
has  turned  out  unhappily  (for  which  you  have  no  one  to  blame 
but  yourself!)  you  are  tasting  the  fruits  of  all  the  wormwood 
and  aloes  that  was  my  potion  since  the  first  day  I  looked  upon 
your  baby  face  and  hugged  you  to  my  bosom  with  a  father's 
pride. 

In  either  case,  you  should  be  in  a  position  to  sympathize  with 
me  and  at  last  pay  your  great  debt  to  me  by  exerting  yourself 
there  at  home  in  a  trifling  matter  in  my  behalf. 

Nathaniel,  I  may  say  I  have  broadened  mentally  in  many 
things  since  leaving  Paris  and  altered  my  views  on  many  mat 
ters,  principally  the  subject  of  divorce.  Against  my  will,  after 
all  your  mother  has  done,  I  am  compelled  to  believe  in  divorce. 
Now  that  you  children  are  grown  and  we  have  completely  ful 
filled  our  duties,  responsibilities  and  offices  as  parents  in  every 
way,  there  is  no  longer  need  for  your  father  and  your  mother  to 
pull  against  one  another  and  fight  disgracefully  till  stark  death 
closes  down  in  the  peace  which  passeth  human  understanding. 
Therefore,  Nathaniel,  as  one  who  has  reached  man's  estate,  1 


312  THE  FOG 

write  to  you  and  make  my  last  request.  Then  I  shall  give  you 
my  blessing,  go  my  way  and  never  trouble  you  again  —  only  to 
remember  you  in  my  prayers.  Nathaniel,  I  want  you  to  help  me 
get  a  divorce  from  your  mother.  Moreover,  I  want  it  at  once. 
This  much  is  not  only  my  right  but  your  duty.  Never  mind 
how  the  vast  reaches  of  earthly  distance  may  separate  us,  re 
member  I  am  always  the  father  who  gave  you  birth. 

I  am  not  ashamed  to  write  why  I  want  a  divorce.  The  fact 
is,  an  enforced  exile  in  a  foreign  land,  charged  with  a  crime 
which  was  not  a  crime  if  my  position  could  only  be  understood, 
I  have  met  a  lady  who  is  all  which  your  mother  never  has  been, 
is  not  now  and  never  can  be.  Beautiful  of  face  and  form, 
talented,  poised,  brainy  and  cultured,  I  would  turn  over  a  new 
page  in  life,  redeem  the  past  and  live  as  God  intended  every 
man  should  live  —  normally,. happily,  at  peace  with  his  wife  and 
the  world.  This  is  my  right,  I  say.  This  phase  of  it  you  have 
no  license  to  question. 

So  I  desire  you  to  engineer  a  divorce  at  once.  The  grounds 
of  course,  would  be  incompatibility.  Your  mother  must  not 
know  of  this  —  that  I  wish  it  —  or  she  will  show  her  inherent 
meanness  and  cheapness  at  once  and  oppose  it  simply  because 
I  desire  it.  You  alone  have  influence  with  her.  And  I  am  not 
unprepared  to  make  it  worth  your  while. 

The  lady  I  want  to  make  my  real  wife  is  very  wealthy.  She 
is  a  widow  living  with  her  father  who  is  in  trade  out  here. 
I  met  her  coming  across  nine  months  ago  and  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life  the  cup  of  happiness  is  held  to  my  lips.  It  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  the  son  for  whom  I  sacrificed  twenty-five 
of  the  best  years  of  my  life  will  dash  it  away. 

The  day  you  forward  me  a  copy  of  the  court's  decree,  assur 
ing  me  I  am  a  free  man,  I  solemnly  promise  to  pay  you  one 
thousand  dollars  and  no  questions  asked.  Of  course  all  this, 
including  my  present  whereabouts,  is  strictly  confidential. 

I  await  your  reply  with  interest.     In  fact,  I  think  I  should 
like  you  to  cable  me  an  answer  —  that  you  are  working  on  the 
case,  that  within  the  year  I  may  be  free.     Free !    Free !    Free  ! 
Your  hideously  wronged  father, 

JONATHAN  H.  FORGE. 

Nathan  crossed  to  one  of  the  lobby  chairs  and  sat  down. 
He  lighted  one  of  his  cigars  absently.  Once  or  twice  he 
smiled  bitterly.  Then  he  picked  up  the  several  sheets  covered 
on  both  sides  with  his  father's  weak,  pothook  penmanship 
and  read  them  again.  When  his  cigar  had  been  smoked 
to  the  end,  he  went  upstairs  to  the  writing  room,  laid  aside 
hat  and  raincoat,  lighted  a  fresh  cigar  and  at  twenty  minutes 


ALWAYS  JUSTIFIED  313 

to  nine  o'clock  started  his  reply.  It  was  ten  minutes  after 
one  when  he  signed  his  name. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  Nathan  unleashed  his  right 
eous  wrath  and  told  his  father  what  he  thought  of  him.  For 
the  first  time,  devoid  of  religious  fetish  or  mawkish  "re 
spect",  the  son  drew  forth  the  whips  of  his  scorn  and  laid 
them  without  stint  on  his  father's  naked  back.  He  had  noth 
ing  to  lose  which  he  cared  for,  and  nothing  to  gain  that  he 
desired.  With  a  maturing  understanding,  a  cold  brain  and 
a  righteous  anger,  he  gave  his  father  to  understand  in  no 
uncertain  terms  what  he  thought  of  his  "twenty-five  years 
of  sacrifice"  and  his  "right  to  happiness"  —  with  a  strange 
woman. 

"I  am  not  interested  in  the  lady,"  he  concluded;  "not 
because  you  want  to  shelve  mother  and  take  up  with  another 
woman  but  the  method  you  essay  —  a  rather  contemptible 
method  from  my  standpoint  —  to  go  about  it.  God  was 
mighty  real  to  you  and  a  hard  taskmaster  when  Edith  and 
I  were  growing,  reaching  out  and  demanding  that  nature  be 
answered  with  the  most  natural  and  normal  things  of  life. 
Apparently  He's  taking  a  vacation  when  you  arrive  at  the 
place  where  you  want  them  yourself.  I'm  not  calling  you 
a  hypocrite.  If  I  could,  that  would  explain  much.  But  I 
am  saying  that  I'm  not  made  of  the  stuff  to  take  money  for 
freeing  my  father  from  my  mother,  that  my  father  may 
gratify  his  own  happiness  while  mother  trims  hats  in  a 
small-town  millinery  for  a  handful  of  dollars  a  week.  In 
fact,  if  it  wasn't  coarse,  I'd  feel  like  telling  you  to  take  your 
self-pity,  your  twisted  outlook  on  life,  your  belated  love 
affair  and  go  to  the  devil.  That's  crude.  But  it  would  ex 
press  the  state  of  my  feelings  with  neatness,  conciseness  and 
dispatch." 

Nathan  read  over  the  packet  of  pages  he  had  produced. 
Then  he  jogged  them  with  ink-daubed  fingers  and  folded 
them  into  an  envelope.  With  a  consciousness  of  good  work 
well  executed,  he  stored  the  addressed  envelope  away  in  his 
pocket  and  went  back  downstairs. 

He  went  out  into  the  city  and  down  Salina  Street.  He 
found  the  all-night  Western  Union  office  open. 

He  despatched  a  cable  to  his  father  —  four  words. 

"Letter  received.     Not  interested." 


314  THE  FOG 

He  went  back  to  his  hotel,  ripped  his  evening's  work  to 
shreds  and  dropped  them  in  his  waste  basket. 


in 

Nathan  was  at  home  a  month  later  when  another  letter 
arrived  from  Japan.  Milly  was  down  to  her  mother's  and 
he  was  dining  from  a  corner  of  the  kitchen  table  when  the 
bell  rang  and  the  postman  handed  it  in.  Nathan  read  it  while 
finishing  his  lunch. 

Tokio,  Japan, 
Sept.  10,  1916. 
Nathan  Forge, 
Paris,  Vt. 
Dear  Sir: — 

Your  cable  has  reached  me,  saying  you  got  my  letter  giving 
you  your  last  chance  to  do  the  square  thing  by  your  father  and 
repay  him  for  all  he  has  done  and  suffered  for  you — and  you 
are  not  interested. 

I  might  have  known.  You  are  that  kind  of  a  son.  I  am  done 
with  you  —  done,  done,  done ! 

Carefully  through  my  things  I  have  searched  and  culled  out 
all  that  pertains  to  you;  every  reminder  of  you.  Out  of  my 
heart  and  my  life  I  am  blotting  you.  Henceforth  my  son  is 
dead.  I  never  had  a  son. 

Certain  things  which  I  have  carried  in  my  wallet,  I  am  re 
turning  herewith.  Cherish  them!  Save  them  for  the  dark 
hours,  the  melancholy  twilights,  the  haunting  midnights.  Sleep 
with  them  beneath  your  pillow  and  take  them  out  in  dreams 
and  say :  I  am  cursed  by  my  father !  I  am  a  son  outside  the  pale ! 
I  have  desecrated  God.  I  have  damned  my  soul! 

Your  cable  and  its  unnatural  message  cuts  the  last  ties  binding 
me  to  the  past.  Henceforth  I  go  alone,  a  wanderer  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  the  cup  of  happiness  dashed  from  my  lips,  life  an 
inferno  of  What-Might-Have-Been  —  made  so  by  the  boy  whom 
I  gave  the  breath  of  life  and  who  now  brings  down  my  gray 
hairs  in  sorrow  to  the  grave. 

Where  I  go  and  what  becomes  of  me,  you  will  never  know. 
You  will  wonder  after  your  dear  father  but  the  winds  shall 
return  no  answer  where  he  has  gone — the  hideous  ingratitude 
of  the  course  you  have  elected  to  pursue  will  arise  and  point 
taunting  fingers  at  you.  All  your  joys  and  happiness  shall  be 
blighted.  The  rain  shall  patter  down  and  the  night  winds  whine 
in  the  casements.  And  to  you  they  shall  say  —  "I  am  accursed !" 


ALWAYS  JUSTIFIED  315 

I  am  accursed!     My  father  has  accursed  me  and  nowhere  on 
earth  is  there  peace  for  my  throbbing  head!" 

Therefore,  farewell !  When  you  look  into  the  faces  of  your 
children,  may  your  crime  and  ingratitude  sear  you  to  madness. 
In  the  midst  of  your  laughter  may  you  be  sobered  and  the  nectar 
of  joy  in  your  glass  turn  to  vinegar.  And  if  in  the  last  great 
day,  pursuing  my  right  to  happiness,  I  stumble  and  fall,  on  your 
head  be  my  sin ! 

Already  in  the  lowest  depths  of  hell    (in  unhappiness  and 
misery  of  spirit)   I  point  my  awful  finger  at  you  and  I  cry: 
"Curse  you !    Curse  you !    Curse  you !" 
Good-by   forever! 

JONATHAN  HADLEY  FORGE. 

Nathan  looked  through  what  his  father  had  so  dramatically 
enclosed :  A  lock  of  Edith's  baby  hair  tied  with  a  tiny  pink 
ribbon;  a  small  tintype  of  himself  and  Anna  Forge  taken 
at  some  street  fair  back  in  the  Nineties;  two  snapshots  of 
Nathan  taken  the  year  before  moving  to  Paris  from  Fox- 
boro  Center ;  a  picture  postcard  of  Main  Street,  Paris  — 
lacking  none  of  the  features  which  had  so  depressed  Made- 
laine  Theddon  —  a  newspaper  clipping  containing  the  first  of 
Nathan's  poems  copied  by  the  Sunday  Globe  —  the  cable 
gram  of  Nathan's  last  message  as  Johnathan  had  received  it 
in  Japan. 

Nathan  soaked  a  half  a  doughnut  in  his  lukewarm  tea  as 
the  pathetic  assortment  lay  before  him.  Then  he  read  his 
father's  letter  again  and  smiled.  He  had  to  smile. 

He  gathered  up  the  envelope's  contents  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  later.  He  jogged  them  together  and  for  want  of  interest 
and  a  better  place,  slipped  them  between  an  ammonia  bottle 
and  the  wall  at  the  end  of  the  shelf  above  the  kitchen  sink. 

Next  noontime  Johnathan  Hadley  Forge,  in  the  lowest 
depths  of  hell,  was  smeared  with  copious  gobs  of  whisker- 
flecked  lather  from  Nathan's  razor. 

Nothing  else  being  handy  at  the  moment,  Nathan  used  the 
letter  for  shaving  paper! 


CHAPTER  VI 

INFINITE   PATIENCE 


It  was  the  day  of  the  Harvard-Pennsylvania  boat  race. 
Madelaine  Theddon  had  come  from  Boston  to  cheer  for  the 
crimson.  Gordon  met  her  and  after  the  races  off  Court 
Square  they  went  to  The  Worthy  for  dinner. 

Springfield  was  holding  open  house  whether  it  wanted  to 
hold  open  house  or  no.  Groups  of  college  boys  paraded  the 
streets.  Banners  were  rampant ;  bands  played.  In  early 
evening  large  numbers  of  Harvard  undergrads  descended 
upon  The  Worthy  dining  room  and  commandeered  the  place 
for  their  personal  mess  hall.  It  was  a  hilarious,  happy,  bois 
terous  crowd,  —  and  atmosphere.  In  another  year  the  grim 
hand  of  war  would  grip  the  vitals  of  the  nation.  Let  academic 
masculinity  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  most 
of  it  would  be  slopping  in  trench  water  or  dodging  shrapnel. 

Madelaine  and  Gordon  had  entered  the  room  early.  They 
had  secured  a  table  beside  one  of  the  Worthington  Street 
windows.  The  day  died  and  evening  came.  The  air  was 
balmy  and  the  windows  were  open.  Madelaine  felt  light- 
hearted.  The  vacation  was  welcome  and  she  abandoned  her 
self  to  that  carnival  spirit. 

Gordon  had  "straightened  out."  There  was  no  doubt 
about  it.  He  had  likewise  straightened  up.  He  was  sleekly 
barbered  at  the  moment,  almost  distinguished  in  his  dinner 
clothes.  He  acted  and  talked  like  a  man  with  a  great  life 
purpose.  He  spoke  of  the  iron  works,  swollen  with  muni 
tions  orders,  as  he  spoke  of  his  pocket.  Yet  not  in  conceit 
or  brag.  He  had  been  placed  in  charge  of  an  important 
department  and  was  pursuing  that  business  as  though  it 
were  his  own.  And  the  end  was  not  yet.  Gordon  so  con 
tended,  and  had  found  the  biggest  thrill  of  all  in  building, 
creating,  producing,  doing  some  great,  useful  thing,  the  re- 


INFINITE  PATIENCE  317 

suits  from  which  he  could  see  with  his  eyes  and  touch  with 
his  hands. 

In  the  interim  between,  race  and  dinner,  Madelaine  had 
hurried  home  and  changed  her  frock.  She  was  now  a  dream 
—  a  vision  —  in  black  tulle  lightened  with  silver,  her  cheeks 
flushed,  her  calm  eyes  unusually  merry,  the  inverted  lights 
of  the  big  dining  room  shining  on  raven  hair  massed  high 
above  a  wide,  brainy  forehead.  With  Gordon  in  his  new 
incarnation  across  the  snowy  linen  and  a  tiny  candle-lamp 
with  a  red-mulled  shade  at  her  right  wrist  making  the  dinner 
rendezvous  cozy,  despite  the  noise  going  on  in  the  room, 
Madelaine  almost  fancied  she  was  in  love  with  Gord  and  the 
world  a  bit  nebulous  with  glorified  mist. 

Wine  flowed  freely  at  the  college  tables.  Glitter  went  in 
hand  with  horseplay.  A  big  tin  horn  was  much  in  evidence. 
At  intervals,  its  blare  cleft  the  tumult  with  nerve-jolting 
suddenness.  Ever  and  anon,  amid  the  tinkle  of  tableware 
and  the  popping  of  corks,  there  was  song. 

The  boys  sang  "Fair  Harvard",  "There's  a  Tavern  in 
the  Town",  "Little  Brown  Jug",  and  that  latter-day  classic, 
"Mary  Ann  McCarty,  She  Went  Out  to  Dig  Some  Clams", 
and  they  kept  time  to  Mary  Ann  McCarty's  vicissitudes  in 
the  clam-digging  vocation  with  cutlery,  wine  bottles  and 
feet.  An  especially  hilarious  group  of  fat  boys  off  in  a  corner 
originated  new  yells.  Colored  waiters  sweated  and  hurried 
and  dodged  bits  of  food  hurled  at  them  and  made  themselves 
as  agreeable  as  possible  at  the  prospect  of  many  bowls  filled 
with  tip  money  to  be  left  behind  for  distribution  when  the 
festivities  were  over. 

The  waiter  who  served  Madelaine  and  her  escort  asked 
about  wine.  Gordon  raised  an  inquiring  eyebrow.  Made 
laine  named  her  preference.  Gordon  ordered  an  elaborate 
dinner  but  no  liquor  —  for  himself. 

"What?"  the  astonished  girl  exclaimed. 

Gordon  laughed  as  he  slid  the  big  menu  carefully  under 
the  base  of  the  lamp. 

"I've  had  enough  of  that  stuff  in  the  past  —  enough  to  last 
me  all  the  rest  of  my  life.  It's  time  I  let  it  alone,  Madge. 
Besides,  I  don't  feel  I  can  afford  it.  Oh,  I  don't  mean  the 
cost  in  money.  I'm  swinging  a  big  thing,  Madge,  and  I 
can't  afford  a  muddled  head." 

A  queer  thrill  burned  at  the  roots  of  the  girl's  fine  hair. 


318  THE  FOG 

"Well,  you  have  changed,  Gordon !    I'll  give  you  credit !" 

"You're  responsible,  Madge.  If  you  hadn't  given  me  an 
incentive,  I'd  still  be  blowing  around  western  Massachusetts 
dodging  traffic  cops  and  breaking  glass.  You  know  that, 
don't  you,  dear?" 

He  reached  his  hands  across  the  small  table  and  covered 
her  own. 

"Don't,  Gord!     Not  here!" 

"Don't  you,  Madge?" 

"Don't  I  what?" 

"Don't  you  know  it  —  that  you're  responsible?" 

"Do  you  mean  by  that,  if  I  were  suddenly  removed  from 
your  scheme  of  things  you'd  go  all  to  pieces  —  back  to  the 
kind  of  chap  you  were  a  couple  of  years  ago?" 

The  man's  face  fell. 

"Perhaps,  Madelaine,"  he  said  solemnly. 

"That's  weak,  Gordon.  You  must  play  the  man  for  the 
sake  of  playing  the  man,  not  because  you  want  to  court  the 
favor  of  a  certain  woman." 

"I  hoped  you'd  take  it  as  a  compliment,  Madge." 

"I  do  take  it  as  a  compliment.  But  the  responsibility  isn't 
reassuring.  I  don't  want  to  feel  that  I'm  a  man's  —  goal. 
There's  so  much  worth  while  in  the  world  as  a  goal  beside 
the  mere  winning  of  a  woman." 

"Not  when  a  fellow's  in  love,  Madge." 

"Let's  not  talk  about  love.     Let's  just  enjoy  ourselves." 

Gordon  felt  he  was  annoying  her.  He  changed  the  sub- 
jfect. 

"All  Springfield  seems  to  be  divided  into  two  camps  to 
night,"  he  said.  "Those  who  are  college  people  and  those 
who  are  not."  The  remark  was  occasioned  by  the  stream 
of  people  passing  along  the  walk  outside,  at  shoulder-height 
below  them. 

Madelaine  turned  to  watch  the  crowd.  At  the  riot  of 
hilarity  from  within  the  big  dining  room,  many  paused  and 
smiled.  Others  appeared  annoyed.  Still  others  looked  wist 
ful.  Notably  among  the  latter  was  a  young  fellow  who  stood 
on  the  edge  of  the  Worthington  Street  curbing  and  stared 
up  into  the  dining  room.  He  was  a  pale-faced,  grim-jawed, 
plainly  clothed  chap  with  hungry  eyes.  Madelaine  was  con 
scious  that  he  had  been  standing  opposite  their  window, 
staring  up  for  several  minutes. 


INFINITE  PATIENCE  319 

"What's  that  fellow  doing?"  demanded  Gordon.  "Is  he 
staring  at  you  and  me  —  or  merely  trying  to  snitch  a  chunk 
of  this  room's  boisterousness  free  of  charge?" 

"Poor  fellow!"  returned' the  girl.  "He  looks  as  though 
he  belonged  in  here  but  for  some  reason  knew  that  he'd 
be  ejected  if  he  tried  to  enter  —  and  what  a  peculiar  ear  he 
has.  Mercy,  I  wish  he  wouldn't  stare  so!  His  expression 
will  haunt  me  in  sleep  to-night." 

"I'll  send  some  one  out  to  tell  him  to  move  on !" 

"No !  No !  Don't  do  that !  Let's  just  ignore  him.  Maybe 
he'll  go  away." 

The  waiter  came  with  iced  blue-points.  When  Madelaine 
next  glanced  sideways  out  the  window,  the  fellow  with  the 
wistful  face  had  gone  away. 


ii 

Nathan  wandered  the  streets  of  Springfield's  business  sec 
tion  and  his  heart  was  heavy  within  him.  The  college  boys 
jostled  him  from  the  walks.  The  band  music  and  the  blar 
ing  horns  hurt  him.  He  lamented  the  coincidence  which 
had  brought  him  to  Springfield  on  a  day's  sales  business 
while  this  alma-mater  joviality  was  in  progress.  It  mocked 
him  with  all  of  that  youthful  heritage  of  which  he  felt 
himself  cheated. 

The  windows  of  The  Worthy  had  held  an  especial  fascina 
tion.  It  wasn't  altogether  the  care-free  college  singing,  the 
mardi-gras  spirit,  the  esprit  de  corps  among  all  college  men 
in  town  that  night.  It  was  a  sense  of  his  own  inability  to 
attain  to  what  these  things  stood  for  without  hurting  some 
one  to  do  it.  He  would  have  liked  to  be  dining  in  such  a 
place,  across  a  snowy  table  from  a  beautifully  gowned 
woman,  —  like  it  very,  very  much.  But  probably  the  fellow 
whom  he  had  watched  with  that  princess  in  black  tulle 
thought  nothing  of  it.  That  was  his  life.  •  He  placed  no 
value  on  the  delights  of  high-caste  living  because  he  had 
never  known  anything  else.  He  disclosed  it  by  his  poise  and 
easy  familiarity  with  his  environment,  his  graceful  behavior 
and  carriage  in  juxtaposition  to  his  charming  companion. 
Economists  and  peanut  politicians  might  rail  that  America 
has  no  classes  or  castes.  What  a  mockery!  Between  the 


320  THE  FOG 

lowly-born  and  the  purple  must  ever  exist  a  gulf  as  wide  as 
the  planets.  It  was  not  something  to  be  attained:  it  was 
a  heritage.  At  least  he  believed  so. 

Nathan  went  to  his  hotel  down  near  the  railroad  arch  and 
tried  to  get  solace  from  a  cigar.  It  was  a  very  expensive 
cigar.  It  had  cost  him  thirty-five  cents.  But  it  was  Job's 
comfort.  He  might  make  a  fortune,  he  might  buy  clothes 
that  cost  thousands  and  smoke  thirty-five-cent  cigars  by  the 
bale,  but  that  would  never  give  the  provincial  the  easy  grace 
and  the  utter  lack  of  self -consciousness  displayed  by  that 
fellow  and  girl  outlined  in  the  Wonder  Window.  For  it 
was  a  Wonder  Window  to  poor  Nathan.  It  opened  in  a 
Castle  Wall  where  the  tatterdemalion  crowd  passed  under 
neath  to  wend  their  clodhopper  turkey  tracks  to  mud  huts 
out  on  the  edge  of  the  moor. 

"And  I  suppose,  if  dad  had  only  been  minded  that  way, 
I  might  have  worked  my  way  through  college  and  been  in 
such  a  place  with  a  crowd  of  revelers  and  such  a  woman 
across  from  me  to-night,"  he  said  bitterly.  "Yet  my  prob 
lem  is  how  to  overcome  that  handicap  now.  How  can  I? 
What  must  I  do  ?  Some  one  ought  to  write  a  book  on  how 
to  climb  out  of  mediocrity  and  Be  Somebody!" 

Be  Somebody!  That  was  Milly's  code  now.  But  what 
a  mess  she  was  making  of  it!  Some  one  ought  to  write  a 
book  to  help  women  to  be  somebody,  also.  Hang  it  all, 
what  was  the  matter  with  life,  anyhow?  Where  in  it  all 
was!  the  great  constructive  purpose?" 

Nathan  never  forgot  that  night  in  Springfield  when  all 
unwittingly  he  had  beheld  Madelaine  Theddon  above  him 
in  the  hotel  window.  Not  because  he  had  seen  Madelaine 
and  remembered  her,  but  because  of  the  events  which  fol 
lowed  swiftly. 

He  had  just  retired  to  bed  and  pushed  the  button  ex 
tinguishing  his  lamp,  to  lie  and  ponder  on  the  problem  of 
how  he  could  Be  Somebody,  when  two  sharp  taps  came 
at  his  door.  He  arose  and  opened  it  a  crack. 

"Telegram,  sir!"  said  the  lad  outside. 

Nathan  reached  for  his  vest  and  gave  the  boy  ten  cents. 
Then  he  sank  down  on  the  edge  of  his  bed  and  tore  the  end 
of  the  flimsy  yellow  envelope. 

COME    AT   ONCE    URGENT    ACCIDENT    MILDRED 


INFINITE  PATIENCE  321 

Nathan  tried  to  get  his  home  in  Paris  on  the  long-distance. 
There  had  been  a  bad  thunderstorm  above  Brattleboro  and 
the  wires  were  down.  He  arose  and  dressed  but  could  not 
get  a  train  to  take  him  through  to  White  River  Junction 
before  six-thirty  in  the  morning. 


ill 

At  my  wife's  suggestion,  I  went  down  the  line  to  meet 
Nathan.  Mary  Ann  drove  the  roadster  down  to  Gilberts 
Mills.  I  boarded  the  shuttle  train  there  in  order  to  ride  up 
into  the  town  with  him  alone.  I  found  him  in  the  vile- 
flavored  smoker.  He  jumped  as  I  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoul 
der. 

"Bill!"  he  cried.    "Where'd  you  come  from  now?" 

"Just  getting  back  from  the  Mills  where  I  had  to  chase 
a  news  story,"  I  lied.  "You  haven't  been  home  yet,  I  take 
it?" 

"I'm  just  getting  home.  I  got  a  telegram  from  Mildred. 
Do  you  know  about  anything  happening  to  her  or  my  folks, 
Bill  ?"  he  asked  anxiously. 

"Move  over,  old  man,"  I  requested.  "Let's  smoke  a 
cigar  —  a  good  one." 

"Do  you,  Bill?" 

"Yes." 

"What  is  it  ?    In  God's  name,  what  is  it  ?" 

"Nathan,  it's  a  darned  long  lane  that  doesn't  have  a  turn 
ing  sometime,"  said  I.  "And  some  of  the  turns  are  pleasant 
and  some  are  hard.  The  mystery  to  me  is  why  most  of  the 
turns  for  some  people  seem  to  be  hard  ones." 

"Bill,  —  cut  out  the  suspense.  You're  trying  to  prepare 
me  for  bad  news.  And  I  think  you're  lying  about  that 
news  story.  You  came  down  a  purpose  to  meet  me.  Let's 
have  it  —  the  worst.  I've  stood  a  lot.  But  I  —  well,  any- 
thing's  better  than  suspense.  What's  happened?" 

Once  before  I  had  been  called  to  break  bad  news  to  my 
chum.  I  had  done  it  crudely,  tossed  him  a  paper  with  a 
red-inked  item  which  had  aborted  his  whole  life.  I  wanted 
to  do  a  more  artistic  bit  of  work  now.  But  I'm  afraid  again 
I  messed'  it. 

"It's  your  little  girl,  Nat,"  said  I.    "She's  —  gone  away." 


322  THE  FOG 

"Gone  away  ?    You  mean  she's  run  off  —  she's  lost  ?" 

"Runoff?    No!     Lost?    Yes!" 

He  gripped  my  arm 

"You  mean  little  Mary's  —  dead  ?" 

My  cigar  tasted  like  tar  and  ashes.  I  simply  proffered 
him  a  short  clipping  from  the  Telegraph  of  the  previous 
evening. 

AUTO  KILLS  CHILD 


SMALL  DAUGHTER  OF  MR.  AND  MRS.   NATHAN  FORGE  HIT  BY 
RED  FRONT  GROCERY  TRUCK  IN  MAIN  STREET 

The  community  was  shocked  at  four  o'clock  this  afternoon 
when  it  became  known  that  little  Mary  Frances  Forge,  aged 
six  years,  had  been  struck  by  one  of  the  delivery  trucks  be 
longing  to  the  Red  Front  Grocery  in  East  Main  Street  opposite 
the  Catholic  Cemetery. 

The  little  girl  was  on  her  way  home  from  school  when  the 
accident  happened.  One  of  her  companions  chased  her  and 
she  left  the  sidewalk  and  darted  into  the  road  to  escape  her 
pursuer.  The  truck  was  coming  from  a  westerly  direction.  .  .  . 

Nathan  passed  his  hand  across  his  eyes.  He  took  a  long 
hreath,  held  it,  released  it  raggedly. 

"Takes  grit  to  live  sometimes,  doesn't  it,  Bill?  Just 
grit!"  he  said. 

Little  more  was  spoken  on  that  ensuing  two  miles  before 
the  train  drew  alongside  the  Paris  depot  platform. 


rv 

It  takes  grit  to  live  sometimes  —  just  grit! 

Milly  naturally  was  the  more  grief -stricken  of  the  two  in 
the  hectic  days  which  followed.  But  it  was  Mrs.  Anna 
Forge  who  shed  the  most  tears  and  acted  generally  as  though 
the  bottom  had  dropped  from  the  universe. 

She  gave  up  her  job  in  the  millinery  store  —  just  why  it 
was  necessary  to  give  up  her  job  under  the  circumstances 
is  difficult  to  explain,  but  she  did  —  and  moved  to  Nathan's 
house,  bag  and  baggage,  "to  help."  That  her  help  had  not 
been  solicited  was  immaterial.  That  there  was  nothing 
especially  to  "help"  was  likewise  passed  over.  She  had  not 


INFINITE  PATIENCE  323 

visited  Nathan's  home  a  dozen  times  since  his  marriage,  not 
being  able  to  "get  along"  with  Nathan's  wife.  And  the 
child  had  once  blandly  commented  that  its  grandmother  "had 
starin',  ugly  eyes,"  which  had  prejudiced  her  from  intimacy 
with  Nat's  youngster  and  convinced  her  that  Nathan's  wife 
and  family  were  somehow  in  league  against  her  and  had 
put  the  child  up  to  it.  But  now  that  the  forked  tines  of 
death  had  struck  near  home,  and  tears  being  right  in  her 
line,  she  insisted  on  a  bed  in  the  front  room,  and  no  paid 
Semitic  mourner  ever  gave  greater  satisfaction  for  services 
rendered  than  Mrs.  Forge  before  that  ordeal  was  ended. 

Incredible  to  relate,  Nathan's  loss  called  up  all  her  own 
losses  a  hundredfold  and  the  distressing  period  was  aggra 
vated  by  the  mother's  worry  because  the  oil-stock  salesman 
had  stopped  answering  her  letters  as  to  just  when  she  was 
to  get  her  dividends  of  three  thousand  per  cent.,  and  the 
cold,  stark  presentiment  began  to  dawn  on  the  woman  that 
perhaps  her  investment  was  in  jeopardy.  It  being  a  time 
of  general  sorrow,  her  own  worries  and  troubles  were  right 
in  line  and  she  bunched  them  together.  Nathan  heard  about 
them  for  the  three-hundredth  time ;  what  the  oil-stock  sales 
man  had  said  to  her,  and  what  she  had  said  to  the  oil-stock 
salesman,  and  what  he  had  promised  and  what  she  had  ex 
pected,  and  what  Johnathan  had  said  to  her  apropos  of  her 
value  as  a  \vif~s  during  twenty-five  years  of  incompatibility, 
and  what  she  had  retorted  to  Johnathan,  —  till  Milly  ex 
ploded  and  declared  if  she  said  another  word,  she,  Milly, 
would  shriek;  which  Mrs.  Forge  did  and  which  Milly  did, 
and  Nathan  had  to  act  as  peacemaker  and  keep  all  hands  as 
reasonably  pleasant  as  possible  until  after  the  services. 

I  slept  with  Nathan  the  night  before  the  funeral.  Milly 
had  sent  for  her  own  mother  and  was  sleeping  with  her,  the 
wife  characteristically  preferring  the  solace  and  companion 
ship  of  her  mother  to  her  husband,  and  my  presence  being 
proffered  to  mitigate  my  friend's  load  as  much  as  I  could. 
And  Mrs.  Forge  wept  for  her  lost  grandchild  and  oil-stock 
—  or  oil-stock  and  grandchild  —  and  would  not  be  com 
forted. 

I  marveled  at  my  chum's  moral  fiber  and  mental  strength. 
Once  I  caught  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  when  alone 
for  a  moment.  But  he  smiled  courageously  through  them 
and  seemed  grateful  for  my  sympathy.  His  lips  were  very 


324  THE  FOG 

firm  through  that  ghastly  ordeal  and  his  patience  was  infinite. 

On  the  night  before  the  funeral,  as  aforesaid,  Mrs.  Anna 
Forge  walked  the  upper  hallway  outside  our  door,  thought 
of  all  the  indignities,  injustices  and  sorrows  she  had  ever 
experienced  and  gave  the  two  of  us  a  full  account  of  them. 
Whole  hours  passed  thus  and  time  slipped  on  into  deeper 
night.  At  intervals  Mrs.  Forge's  haranguing  voice  stopped 
or  she  was  compelled  to  stop  because  of  her  sobbing.  But 
she  soon  started  in  again.  Then  it  dawned  upon  her  that 
Nathan  might  not  be  listening.  When  she  called  to  him  and 
he  failed  to  answer  —  though  he  was  wide-awake  enough  — 
she  planted  herself  in  front  of  the  bedroom  door  and  gave 
Nathan  to  understand  in  high-C  language  that  if  Nathan 
didn't  come  down  in  the  parlor  and  hear  all  about  his  father 
and  the  oil  stock  and  "what  she  had  suffered",  she  would 
come  in  there  and  talk  to  him  even  if  there  was  a  strange 
man  in  the  bed.  She  didn't  propose  to  go  on  talking  when 
he  didn't  show  any  more  "respect"  for  his  mother  than  to 
go  to  sleep. 

"Nat,"  said  I,  "may  I  take  a  hand  and  settle  this?  You 
can't  listen  to  this  harangue  all  night.  You've  got  to  get 
some  sleep  or  you'll  go  crazy." 

"No,  no,  Bill,"  he  answered.  He  sighed  and  stretched 
wearily  in  the  bed.  "It's  only  mother  and  —  well,  she  can't 
help  it.  She's  built  that  way,  and  I  suppose  her  own  trou 
bles  have  sort  of  unbalanced  her." 

"Nathan!"  came  the  mother's  stringent  demand.  "I'll 
not  stand  here  talking  all  night !  Will  you  come  down  and 
hear  what  I've  got  to  say,  or  will  I  come  in  ?" 

"Nat,"  I  cried  angrily,  "for  God's  sake  let  me  settle  this!" 

"You  couldn't,  Bill.  You'd  only  make  her  worse.  And 
I  don't  want  her  to  run  screaming  down  the  center  of  the 
street  at  this  time  of  night,  arousing  the  neighbors  and  tell 
ing  them  all  her  troubles.  I'll  go  down  and  talk  with  her." 

And  he  did. 

I  lay  in  the  bed  alone  and  heard  the  clock  strike  two  and 
three.  And  still  the  mother  kept  the  son  downstairs  and  re 
counted  things  that  Nathan  had  heard  a  thousand  times, — 
what  Johnathan  had  said  and  what  she  had  said,  and  it  would 
have  been  better  to  have  death  in  her  own  house  at  such  a 
time,  wouldn't  it,  than  to  have  "put  up"  with  what  she  "put 
up"  with,  and  would  Nathan  see  a  lawyer  in  the  morning  and 


INFINITE  PATIENCE  325 

get  him  after  those  oil-company  rascals,  and  where  did 
Nathan  think  his  father  had  gone  and  was  there  any  prospect 
of  making  him  suffer  for  deserting  her?  So  on  and  on 
and  on  and  on,  into  the  hours  of  morning. 

But  the  poor  fellow  did  not  lose  his  temper,  did  not  op 
pose  her  or  argue  with  her  or  treat  her  in  any  way  but  with 
the  same  kindly  patience  he  had  shown  toward  every  one 
since  the  tragedy  happened. 

Mrs.  Anna  Forge  literally  talked  herself  out.  A  few 
minutes  after  four  o'clock  she  assented  to  being  tucked  in 
on  the  front-room  sofa  and  demanded  that  Nathan  should 
kiss  her  good  night,  for  he  was  all  she  had,  wasn't  he,  and 
did  he  love  his  dear,  dear  mother  and  who  had  done  any 
more  for  him  than  she  had  done?  Then  Nathan  came  back 
to  bed,  tossed  his  bathrobe  on  the  footboard  and  crawled  in 
beside  me. 

"Cut  out  the  hero  stuff,  Bill,"  he  snapped.  "She's  simply 
a  mental  invalid  and  should  be  treated  as  such.  Anything 
otherwise  would  be  cruel." 

There  may  be  those  who  have  felt  out  of  patience  with 
Nathan  at  certain  periods  in  this  intimate  biography.  They 
may  have  execrated  him  for  an  "easy  mark."  They  may 
have  wanted  to  kick  him,  grab  him  by  the  shoulders  and 
shake  some  spine  into  him.  I  confess  I  have  felt  so  myself. 
But  speaking  for  myself,  away  down  deep  in  my  heart  of 
hearts,  there's  something  about  a  fellow  who  could  do  what 
Nathan  did,  the  night  before  his  baby  was  buried,  that  has 
my  humble  admiration.  In  the  parlance  of  my  newspaper 
office,  I've  got  "to  hand  it  to  him."  He's  the  sort  of  man 
the  world  needs  more  of.  He's  far  from  being  a  weakling. 
He's  big! 

And  so  the  Forge  baby  was  buried. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FINE   FEATHERS 


One  feature  of  that  funeral  I'll  be  a  long  time  forgetting 
was  the  unexpected  appearance  of  old  Caleb  Gridley. 

Old  Caleb  had  traveled  much  since  he  lost  his  Duchess  and 
disposed  of  his  tannery.  He  had  made  money  and  knew 
how  to  make  more  money,  but  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
he  had  begun  to  enjoy  a  little  of  it  himself.  He  spent  several 
winters  in  Florida  and  a  couple  in  California.  He  was  ab 
sent  much  in  New  York  and  Boston.  Between  times  he 
turned  a  quick  dollar  wherever  opportunity  presented,  —  in 
timber  lands,  wood  pulp,  short-term  notes  or  sure  things  in 
the  stock  market. 

Nobody  knew  he  was  in  town  until  the  hour  for  the  ser 
vices.  He  came  to  the  front  door  and  rang  the  muffled  bell. 
He  was  duly  admitted  and  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I 
truthfully  believe,  I  saw  the  old  tanner  without  his  derby 
hat.  He  looked  nude  without  it,  —  horribly  nude.  He  held 
it,  old  style,  by  the  brim  in  the  crook  of  his  left  arm,  at  the 
same  time  proffering  Mother  Richards  a  little  bouquet  of 
pink  rosebuds  with  his  right. 

"Bought1  'em  myself,"  he  announced  in  a  husky  whisper, 
"fer  the  baby."  He  said  it  like  an  apology.  "Babies  always 
seemed  to  me  like  pink  rosebuds.  Just  gimme  a  seat  next 
the  door.  I'll  be  goin'  presently." 

But  the  old  man  did  not  go  presently.  He  sat  through 
the  entire  services  and  when  Nathan  had  helped  his  hysteri 
cal  young  wife  away,  it  was  Caleb  who  gave  the  undertaker 
what  assistance  was  required. 

"Come  up  and  see  me,  bub,"  he  invited  Nathan,  meeting 
the  young  man  when  that  distressing  afternoon  was  a 
thing  of  the  past  and  Milly  had  gone  home  to  her  mother's. 
"Now  and  then  I  hanker  for  the  old  days  when  you  an'  me 
used  to  read  poetry." 


FINE  FEATHERS  327 

Nathan  went.  No  place  other  than  Caleb's  room  in  the 
hotel  could  have  been  more  appropriate  or  consoling  for 
him  at  the  moment.  Gridley  loosened  his  vest  and  clothes, 
a  process  he  designated  as  "easin'  up  for  comfort",  and  the 
queer  pair  sat  down  together,  it  being  several  moments  before 
either  broke  the  silence.  Finally  the  old  man,  with  his  mas 
sive  chin  thrust  deep  in  his  shirt,  one  big  leg  thrown  over 
the  other  and  a  slipper  sole  swinging,  cleared  his  throat. 
With  his  eyes  averted,  he  declared  huskily : 

"Bub,  you  an'  me  always  liked  poetry  and  read  a  heap  o' 
the  stuff,  ain't  we?  And  some  of  it  was  mighty  good, 
specially  Tennyson.  But  do  you  know,  I  made  a  discovery 
t'other  day.  I  come  across  a  copy  o'  the  Bible  down  to  Bos- 
ting  where  the  Psalms  was  all  laid  out,  poetry- fashion.  I 
never  seen  'em  that  way  before  and  it  struck  me  they  was 
the  best  sort  o'  poetry  I'd  ever  stumbled  over.  Specially 
the  Twenty-third  Psalm.  Ever  read  the  Twenty-third  Psalm 
like  verses  o'  poetry,  bub?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  have,  Mr.  Gridley." 
"Wonder  if  they  gotta  Bible  here?     I'll  show  ye!" 
There  was  a  Gideon  Bible  in  one  of  the  dresser  drawers. 
And  the  tanner  resumed  his  seat.    Then  whether  by  design 
or  no  —  but  I  rather  suspect  it  was  by  design  —  old  "God- 
Damning"  Gridley,  as  some  folk  called  him,  tried  to  heal  the 
wound  in  the  boy's  spirit  by  the  beautiful  cadences  of  that 
masterpiece  of  all  poems : 

"The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,"  he  began,  "I  shall  not  want. 
He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures; 
He  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters,. 
He  restoreth  my  soul. 
Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 

Death, 

I  will  fear  no  evil. 
For  thou  art  with  me,  .  .  . 
Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff  —  they  comfort  me." 

Nathan  said  afterward  it  would  be  impossible  to  repeat 
the  infinite  pathos  and  tenderness  in  the  hard-boiled  old  busi 
ness  man's  voice  as  he  intoned  the  lines,  his  dangling  slipper 
swinging  time  with  the  rhythm. 

"Bub,"  said  the  old  man  finally,  "I  lost  a  boy  when  I 
was  'bout  your  age.  Nobody  in  Paris  ever  knew  about  it. 


328  THE  FOG 

It  was  them  lines  helped  me  most  of  all.     Great  stuff — 
poetry !" 

ii 

Through  Caleb's  maneuvering  it  was,  some  time  later,  that 
Nathan  was  called  one  afternoon  into  Ted  Thome's  offices 
at  the  knitting  mill. 

"Nat,"  announced  that  young  commercial  dignitary,  "the 
old  man  and  I  have  been  talking  you  over.  Gridley  was  in 
here  the  other  day  —  you  know  who  I  mean  —  old  duffer 
who  used  to  run  the  tannery.  Well,  he  owns  a  rotten  lot  of 
stock  in  this  mill.  Put  it  in  when  dad  first  started.  And  the 
old  man  goes  by  Gridley's  advice  a  lot.  Seems  old  Gridley's 
scraped  up  an  interest  in  you  somewhere  and  first  father 
and  I  knew,  old  Caleb  was  cussin'  like  a  Malay  pirate  and 
laying  down  the  law  about  how  we  ought  to  reconstruct  our 
sales  force.  But  it  looks  as  if  we  might  get  drawn  into  the 
war  and  we're  watching  our  step." 

"Yes,  it  does  look  like  war,"  returned  Nat  gravely.  "I 
just  read  the  President's  message  to  Congress  this  morning." 

"It's  this  way,  Nat.  Mosely,  who's  been  running  our  New 
York  offices,  is  unmarried.  He'll  probably  go  if  they  call 
for  volunteers.  He  says  he  wants  to  go,  anyhow.  You're 
married  and  have  your  wife  and  mother  to  care  for,  and 
probably  you'll  get  exempted,  if  they  resort  to  a  draft.  So 
dad  and  I  put  two  and  two  together  —  Mosely's  going  to 
war  and  Gridley's  cussin'  in  your  behalf  —  and  I'm  prepared 
to  make  you  a  proposition." 

"But  why  should  Mr.  Gridley  do  any  such  thing?  I've 
got  a  fair  position  already." 

Ted  smoked  a  moment  in  silence,  loath  to  prod  into  Nat's 
personal  affairs.  But  apparently  it  had  to  be. 

"Nat,  you  married  old  Jake  Richards'  oldest  girl,  didn't 
you  ?  I  remember  her  as  a  kid  in  school  —  she  sat  across  the 
aisle  from  me  in  a  couple  of  the  early  grades." 

"Yes.    But  what  of  it?" 

Ted  suddenly  decided  to  be  frank. 

"Nat,  according  to  Caleb,  he  thinks  you're  unhappily  mar 
ried  because  your  wife  has  never  had  much  of  a  chance  to 
see  other  kind  of  existence  but  life  in  a  little  town  like  Paris. 
Old  Cal  believed  that  if  you  and  Mildred  could  settle  in  some 


FINE  FEATHERS  329 

place  like  Boston  or  New  York,  where  Mildred  could  get 
out  among  people,  it  would  change  her  so  much  and  broaden 
her  so,  that  you  and  she  might  be  drawn  closer  together. 
Don't  take  offense.  We  might  as  well  talk  things  frankly." 

"What's  your  proposition?"  asked  Nathan. 

"I've  told  you!  Running  our  New  York  office  in  Fred 
Mosely's  place." 

"That's  quite  a  step  from  my  present  job,  Ted." 

"We  think  you  may  be  more  adapted  for  it ;  you  had  a 
great  knack  of  handling  help  while  you  and  your  father 
were  in  business  here.  There's  a  salary  of  eight  thousand 
a  year  attached  to  it  but  in  New  York  you'll  find  you'll  need 
it.  And  of  course  dad  will  always  expect  you  to  earn  it. 
But  it'll  be  a  complete  change  and  give  your  wife  a  new  in 
terest  in  —  things.  How  about  it?" 

"Whew!"  cried  Nathan.     "I  don't  know  what  to  say!" 

And  he  didn't. 

Three  weeks  later,  however,  he  and  Milly  went  down  to 
New  York,  Nathan  to  "look  over"  the  New  York  office 
of  the  Thorne  Mills  and  decide  whether  he  felt  capable  of 
filling  the  position. 

in 

Mosely,  manager  at  the  time,  was  some  five  or  six  years 
older  than  Nathan,  —  a  typical  young  New  Yorker.  His  peo 
ple  were  wealthy.  His  mother  was  somewhat  of  a  society 
woman.  Her  son  had  "taken  up"  the  woolen  business  and 
secured  his  present  position  through  the  influence  of  his 
father,  —  a  retired  banker  and  semi-invalid  who  was  in 
timately  acquainted  with  the  Thornes. 

"Wife  with  you?"  asked  Mosely,  as  one  afternoon's  con 
sultation  drew  to  a  close.  "Fine!  Mother  has  a  dinner 
affair  on  to-morrow  night  —  not  very  big  —  just  a  few 
friends.  Say,  you  and  your  wife  run  up  and  I'll  introduce 
you  to  a  few  fellows  you'll  be  doing  business  with  if  you 
get  my  place." 

With  the  limitations  of  the  provincial,  Nathan  was  at 
once  panic-stricken. 

Mosely  did  not  add  or  explain  that  he  intended  to  ask  his 
mother  to  lay  two  more  covers  because  he  wanted  to 
discern  how  far  Nat  had  the  ability  to  associate  with  certain 


330  THE  FOG 

metropolitan  types  which  would  be  absolutely  requisite  to 
his  success  in  the  contemplated  position. 

Nathan  reluctantly  accepted  and  hurried  to  the  hotel  to 
advise  Milly. 

Milly  was  panic-stricken  also,  —  but  worse,  far  worse. 
She  went  weak  all  over  and  had  to  sit  down.  Then  she  de 
clared  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  go,  she  didn't  have  a  thing 
to  wear.  And  when  Nathan  said  she  could  have  what  money 
she  desired  to  get  anything  she  wanted,  she  came  out  flat- 
footed  and  confessed  that  she  was  "afraid  to  run  with  the 
swells"  because  she'd  never  know  how  to  act  and  they  might 
laugh  at  her. 

"Very  well,"  sighed  Nathan.  "But  I  must  go  —  as  a  mat 
ter  of  business.  You  can  go  to  a  movie." 

"What!  Leave  me  all  the  evening  alone  in  New  York? 
And  you  off  to  a  tony  party,  enjoying  yourself?" 

"But  what  else  is  there  to  do?  If  you  don't  want  to 
go  and  don't  want  to  stay  at  home,  just  what  do  you 
want  ?" 

"I  don't  want  you  to  go,  either.  You  could  sneak  out  of 
it  and  go  with  me  to  a  show.  I  don't  believe  I'll  ever  get 
my  fill  of  shows  in  New  York." 

"Unfortunately  I  feel  I  ought  to  go,  Milly.  You've  al 
ways  talked  about  wanting  to  meet  high-caste  people  and 
now  when  the  chance  is  open,  you're  half-frightened  to 
death." 

"You're  frightened  too!" 

"I'll  not  deny  it  —  not  frightened  so  much  as  nervous. 
But  it's  a  chance  to  go  and  learn  something  and  show  me 
what  I  lack.  Those  people  can't  eat  me  and  I  intend  to  take 
it.  If  I've  got  to  learn,  now's  as  good  a  time  as  any  to  start 
in." 

Milly  gave  a  nasty  little  chuckle. 

"And  to  think  that  once  I  thought  you  was  my  hero,"  she 
observed,  "as  far  above  me  in  class  as  the  stars !" 

"We  won't  go  into  that,  Milly.  Do  you  care  to  go  with 
me  to  this  dinner  to-morrow  night  or  do  you  not  ?" 

"I'll  go,"  snapped  Milly,  "but  you  needn't  blame  me  if 
I  put  my  foot  in  it." 

"Milly,  did  it  ever  strike  you  that  you're  not  trying  to 
help  me  very  much  as  my  wife  —  to  get  on,  I  mean  — 
holding  up  your  end?" 


FINE  FEATHERS  331 

"I'm  no  different  than  I  was  when  you  married  me! 
Kindly  remember  that !" 

"How  can  I  forget  it,  Milly?" 

"You  needn't  give  me  none  o'  your  nasty  slurs  —  like  your 
Pa  was  always  throwin'  your  mother.  Oh,  I  know  all  about 
'em !  Your  mother  told  me  and  I  seen  enough  of  him  at 
the  shop  to  know  she  warn't  far  wrong!" 

"Let's  not  quarrel,  Milly.  If  you're  going  to  the  dinner 
you'll  need  some  clothes  —  something  new." 

"You  bet  I  will !"  cried  Milly  defiantly,  then  added  as 
though  the  expense  might  make  Nathan  think  better  of  the 
rash  engagement,  "It'll  cost  you  all  of  fifty  dollars,  Mr. 
Man!" 

"Milly,  this  thing  may  mean  a  lot  to  me.  I  want  you  to 
appear  extra  attractive.  Fifty  dollars !  I'm  going  to  give 
you  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  I  want  to  see  you 
'dress  to  kill !'  Find  a  masseuse  first  and  have  her  doll  you 
up  and  then  go  over  in  Fifth  Avenue  and  splurge !  —  for 
once  —  splurge !" 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  ?  Milly  nearly  had  a  spasm. 
She  remained  struck  voiceless  as  Nathan  actually  handed 
over  the  money  with  a  vague  idea  that  some  such  sum  would 
be  necessary.  Like  many  poor  males,  Nathan  held  the  sub 
conscious  notion  that  all  that  was  necessary  to  dress  a 
woman  "to  kill"  was  money. 

And  Milly?  She  swore  she  was  being  robbed  when  a 
masseuse  had  worked  over  her  an  hour  and  a  half  and 
charged  her  ten  dollars,  though  she  was  not  wholly  dis 
pleased  with  the  resultant  change  in  her  appearance.  But 
when  she  walked  into  Martinets,  Incorporated,  with  an 
aplomb  she  did  not  feel  and  discovered  that  "the  cheapest 
dress  they  had"  cost  two  hundred  and  sixty  dollars,  her  nerve 
fled  and  so  did  Milly.  Over  on  Sixth  Avenue  she  bought 
something  "perfectly  stunning"  for  seventeen  dollars  and 
ninety-eight  cents,  —  a  difference  of  two  hundred  and  forty- 
two  dollars  and  two  cents  by  traveling  one  block.  Which 
only  went  to  prove  how  much  money  you  could  save  in 
New  York  when  you  only  knew  where  to  shop! 

The  "perfectly  stunning"  creation  was  an  afternoon  dress 
of  cerise  taffeta,  gorgeously  strung  over  the  front  with  span 
gles.  Milly  went  on  the  theory  that  shine  and  "class"  were 
synonymous,  —  "class"  being  Milly's  favorite  word  and 


332  THE  FOG 

"shine"  Milly's  favorite  idea  of  beauty.  And  if  the  lights 
of  Mrs.  Percival  Mosely's  dining  room  didn't  shine  on  Milly's 
frock  it  was  going  to  be  through  no  fault  of  the  goods 
whereof  the  said  frock  was  constructed.  Milly  also  bought 
a  dark  bottle-green  fan  on  the  principle  that  colors  show  off 
best  by  contrast. 

Truly  Milly  was  a  "queen"  when  the  adjustments  were 
finally  completed.  She  wondered  if  she  could  go  through 
with  it. 

The  Moselys  lived  in  the  East  Fifties,  two  blocks  off  The 
Avenue,  —  a  rather  coldly  impersonal  house  with  a  gray- 
stone  front.  At  seven-forty-five  Milly  permitted  Nathan  to 
help  her  alight  from  the  taxi.  In  fact,  his  help  was  extremely 
welcome.  For  Milly's  knees  had  turned  to  tallow  long  be 
fore  Nathan  had  "hooked  her  up",  not  knowing  whether  he 
exactly  approved  of  Milly's  purchases  or  not.  The  fan 
shocked  him  so  badly  that  he  absolutely  forbade  her  carrying 
it.  Likewise  he  made  her  dispense  with  the  twenty-cent 
aigrette  she  had  purchased  to  add  "class"  to  her  hair.  On 
the  whole,  Milly  did  not  object  to  dispensing  with  these 
things,  although  she  did  wonder  what  she  was  going  to  do 
with  her  hands. 

When  he  had  finally  drawn  off  and  looked  at  his  wife,  Nat 
knew  there  was  something  vaguely  wrong  somewhere.  But 
the  time  was  going  and  if  they  delayed  longer  they  would 
be  late.  Milly  insisted  it  was  fashionable  to  arrive  late. 
Nevertheless,  her  husband  believed  in  being  punctual  at  so 
critical  a  time  to  himself.  As  for  Nathan,  he  had  bought  his 
first  suit  of  dinner  clothes  and,  exceptional  to  recount,  the 
fellow  felt  strangely  at  home  in  them. 

A  second-man  in  full  house  livery  tended  the  door,  — 
the  butler  being  busy  with  last  touches  on  the  table.  Nathan 
tried  to  nudge  Milly  to  go  ahead.  But  Milly  was  too  terror- 
stricken  and  shrank  in  his  rear.  The  husband  instinctively 
felt  foolish  stumbling  ahead  with  Milly  tagging  after  like 
a  poor  relation  he  could  not  shake  off.  But  she  clung  to 
his  arm  as  though  she  might  lose  him. 

The  house-man  conducted  Nathan  to  the  smoking  room, 
raising  his  Celtic  eyebrows  when  Milly  followed,  as  in  a 
daze.  The  smoking  room  had  been  set  aside  for  the  gentle 
men's  street  clothes. 

"This  way,  madam,  please,"  he  corrected,  with  a  cough 


FINE  FEATHERS  333 

to  hide  his  smile.  And  with  an  expression  of  despair,  Milly 
was  borne  away  to  where  a  maid  took  her  in  charge  at  the 
end  of  the  hall  in  a  dressing  room  set  apart  for  the  ladies. 

Mrs.  Mosely  had  her  drawing-room  lighted  with  shaded 
lamps  and  adorned  with  flowers.  The  curtains  had  been 
drawn  and  the  piano  opened.  Milly  furtively  watched  for 
Nathan  to  appear  and  then  almost  ran  across  the  broad  hall 
to  join  him.  She  clutched  her  husband  again  and  "tagged 
after  him"  despite  the  man's  quick  whisper  to  go  ahead. 
"I'm  afraid,"  she  choked.  "You  go  ahead!"  So  Nathan 
and  his  wife  moved  into  the  big  drawing-room  and  Milly's 
daze  continued,  —  as  though  she  were  following  her  husband 
into  the  glories  of  heaven. 

Mosely  senior,  being  bedridden,  was  not  in  evidence. 
Young  Mosely  was  assisting  his  mother  in  receiving.  He 
caught  sight  of  Nathan  and  moved  slightly  forward  with  an 
outstretched  hand.  Milly  dodged  him  and  crept  behind 
her  husband. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  Forge,"  was  the  young  man's  easy 
greeting. 

"Meet  my  wife,"  suggested  Nat,  wondering  if  it  was  the 
right  thing  to  say,  or  rather,  the  right  way  to  say  it. 

"I'm  delighted  to  make  your  acquaintance,  Mrs.  Forge." 

"Pleezeter  meecher,"  lisped  Milly  from  a  safe  position 
halfway  around  her  husband's  back. 

"I  want  to  present  you  to  my  mother,"  went  on  Fred 
Mosely.  "Mother,  may  I  present  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nathaniel 
Forge.  Mr.  Forge  is  the  one  I  spoke  of  —  possibly  taking 
my  place  at  the  office." 

Mrs.  Mosely  was  a  remarkable  woman.  Her  coiffure  was 
a  classic.  Despite  her  sixty  years,  her  face  had  an  onyx 
beauty,  unwittingly  reflected  in  her  voice.  She  wore  silver- 
satin  and  cobweb  lace.  Her  shrewd  eye  appraised  both  new 
arrivals  and  grasped  the  young  country  wife's  distress  at 
once.  Regardless  of  who  or  what  her  guests  might  be,  first, 
last  and  foremost  they  were  her  guests  always  and  must  be 
put  at  their  ease.  The  fine,  hard  old  society  matron  extended 
a  blue-veined  hand. 

Milly  shifted  her  clutch  on  Nat  from  her  right  hand  to 
her  left.  But  she  didn't  let  go  of  him.  He  might  fly  through 
the  windows,  up  through  the  ceiling,  down  through  the  floor 
or  explode  in  her  face,  if  she  failed  to  hang  on  to  him.  She 


334  THE  FOG 

gave  the  hostess  the  hand  thus  disengaged.  Thereafter  the 
next  three  minutes  were  one  phonographic  repetition  of 
"pleezeter-meechers"  —  as  though  the  needle  had  slipped  on 
a  scratched  record  and  hiccoughed  the  word  over  and  over 
again.  Six  other  men  and  six  other  women  smiled  quietly 
but  affected  not  to  notice. 

Introductions  completed,  the  various  groups  returned  to 
their  intercourse.  Nathan  and  Milly  stood  apart,  looking 
uncomfortable  and  feeling  worse.  Nathan  at  length  shook 
himself  free  of  Milly's  blood-binding  clutch.  Milly  found 
her  wits  long  enough  to  gasp  hoarsely  in  her  husband's  ear, 
"Gee,  ain't  it  swell,  Natie !  Lookit !  They  got  a  coon  orches 
tra  !"  Then  a  moment  later,  "You  stick  by  me,  Natie !  Don't 
you  go  lettin'  'em  set  me  off  by  myself  away  with  folks  I 
don't  know !" 

"They'll  probably  have  place  cards,  Milly.  This  isn't  any 
Vermont  church  supper." 

"Place  cards !    What's  them  ?" 

But  Mrs.  Mosely  had  noted  Milly  and  Nathan  standing 
alone,  and  remarked  to  a  gorgeous  creation  in  old-gold  georg 
ette  and  (to  Milly)  shocking  shoulders: 

"For  pity's  sake,  Cynthia,  go  rescue  that  poor  little  girl 
in  the  afternoon  dress.  Put  her  at  her  ease,  or  she'll  ruin 
my  party!" 

So  before  Nat  could  explain  about  place  cards,  the  girl 
Cynthia  interrupted. 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Forge!"  she  cried,  "do  let  me  show  you  the 
new  study  by  Roerich  that  Mrs.  Mosely  just  secured  at 
the  Aldine  Galleries.  I'm  sure  you'll  be  interested." 

Milly  shrank  from  the  onslaught  as  though  Cynthia  What- 
ever-her-last-name-was  had  jabbed  the  deadly  muzzle  of  an 
automatic  into  her  midriff.  She  sent  a  desperate  appeal  to 
Nathan  with  her  eyes  as  though  Nathan  should  speak  up 
and  put  the  Cynthia  person  in  her  place  with,  "No  thank 
you,  Madame;  my  wife  has  absoluely  no  interest  in  Roerich 
— or  any  one  or  anything  else  but  her  husband."  But  Nathan 
did  nothing  or  the  sort.  He  even  looked  relieved.  Relieved 
until  he  saw  his  wife  moving  down  the  big  library  beside  the 
old-gold  gown.  Milly  wasn't  only  a  frump:  she  was  a 
monstrosity!  That  flaming  cerise  with  those  awful  span 
gles  !  Could  it  be  possible  that  Milly  had  paid  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  for  that?  Where  was  Milly's  taste,  any- 


FINE  FEATHERS  335 

way?  Must  he  not  only  support  his  wife  and  shelter  and 
feed  her  and  educate  her,  —  but  turn  modiste  as  well  ?  It 
was  sickening! 

Cerise  Taffeta  and  Old  Gold  Georgette  brought  up  before 
a  large  canvas  at  the  northern  end  of  the  library.  Milly  duly 
recognized  that  it  was  a  picture  because  it  was  bounded  by 
a  gold  frame  and  had  a  shade  of  inverted  lights  above  it. 

"Have  you  ever  seen  any  of  Roerich's  work  before?" 
queried  the  Cynthia  person.  She  was  amused  in  a  way,  but 
it  was  a  painful  amusement. 

"No,"  gulped  Milly. 

"This  is  called  the  'Rain  Princess/  "  went  on  Old  Gold 
Georgette.  "You  know,  I  dearly  love  Roerich.  He  has  so 
much  tartaric  virility  —  such  bold,  wide  sweep  and  atmos 
phere.  His  brown  steppes,  his  blue  seas,  and  his  purple 
mountains  seem  to  come  from  a  borderland " 

"Yes,"  gulped  Milly.  "It — it — ain't  painted  very  plain, 
is  it?" 

"Roerich  is  always  the  colorist,  the  emotionalist.  And 
in  the  East,  form  ever  remains  subservient  to  color,  you 
know." 

"I  like  paintin's,"  averred  Milly,  "where  you  can  tell  what 
you're  lookin'  at.  There  was  an  artist  come  to  Paris  one 
time.  He  painted  pictures  in  the  window  of  The  Modern 
Bargain  Store  —  painted  'em  right  while  you  watched  — 
houses  and  trees  and  things.  He  asked  ten  dollars  apiece  for 
'em.  But  it  did  seem  a  pity  to  pay  him  so  much  —  he  did 
'em  so  quick." 

"Paris,  France?"  demanded  the  puzzled  Cynthia. 

"Lord,  No!     Paris,  Vermont." 

"Oh !"  said  the  other  quickly. 

"Me,  —  I  go  in  for  sepia,"  confided  Milly,  gaining  a  bit 
of  self-confidence  and  evincing  the  volubility  of  the  provin 
cial  once  started.  "I'm  doing  my  sitting  room  in  browns  and 
such.  I  got  a  print  of  St.  Cecilia  at  Michlaman's.  He 
lemme  have  it  for  seven  dollars  because  the  frame  was 
scratched.  But  you  never'd  notice  unless  you  looked  close. 
And  it  was  a  fifteen-dollar  picture!" 

"How  interesting !"  murmured  the  other  in  slight  distress. 

"Oh,  I  know  how  to  buy,  once  I  have  the  money  to  buy 
with!  I  got  a  whole  set  of  that  funny  furniture  with  the 
twisted  legs  to  Blake  Whipple's  for  our  dining  room.  Only 


336  THE  FOG 

fifty-nine  dollars!  It  was  marked  a  hundred  and  fifteen 
but  Whipple  lemme  have  it  because  he  got  stuck  with  it. 
Folks  in  our  town  ain't  much  on  stylish  stuff.  They  want 
chairs  that  has  good  strong  legs,  made  to  be  set  on  and  not 
much  else." 

"Undoubtedly!" 

"Madam,  dinner  is  served,"  came  a  somewhat  sonorous 
voice  off  toward  the  left.  A  butler  in  complete  evening  livery 
—  a  rare  and  an  awesome  sight  for  Milly  whose  only  contact 
with  butlers  had  been  in  the  motion  pictures  —  stood  by  the 
dining-room  door.  Instantly  the  hum  of  conversation 
ceased. 

A  rapier  stab  of  fright  pierced  Milly's  vitals.  Where 
was  Nathan  and  would  he  wait  for  her?  The  wife  aban 
doned  the  Cynthia  person  abruptly  and  frantically  tried  to 
pick  her  husband  from  the  seven  men  all  dressed  alike. 
Horror  of  horrors !  —  Nathan  was  talking  to  that  stout  girl 
in  silver -gray ;  she  had  a  hand  on  his  arm  and  they  were  mov 
ing  toward  the  dining  room. 

Milly  had  a  wild  impulse  to  flee.  She  would  have  flown 
if  she  had  dared  search  out  the  dressing  room  alone.  In  her 
pitiful  panic  young  Mosely  approached  her. 

"May  I  take  you  in,  Mrs.  Forge?"  he  asked  easily. 

"I  guess  so,"  the  girl  responded  dazedly. 

Mosely  held  out  his  arm  but  Milly  did  not  essay  to  take 
it.  The  idea  of  such  presumption!  He  should  have  taken 
her  arm,  of  course.  All  the  fellows  had  done  it  at  the  Satur 
day  night  dances  in  Foresters  Hall  before  she  was  married. 
So  in  a  cold  sweat  and  flaming  fright,  somehow  she  moved 
toward  the  great  double  doors.  Soft  music  started  playing 
behind  a  bank  of  palms  on  the  landing. 

Milly  forgot  her  terror  for  an  instant  at  sight  of  that  "won 
derful"  table.  The  overhead  chandeliers  had  been  extin 
guished.  Shaded  candle  lamps  were  so  concentrated  that 
every  part  of  the  cloth  was  in  radiant  light.  Upon  the  cen 
terpiece  of  drawn  work  a  low  crystal  bowl  held  a  gay  mix 
ture  of  blossoms,  mostly  small  roses.  Milly  wondered  where 
the  food  was,  what  they  intended  to  eat.  All  she  saw  in 
evidence  were  a  few  nuts  and  some  "soup  plates  filled  with 
cracked  ice."  Then  she  came  back  to  her  dilemma.  The 
"crowd"  was  wandering  about  the  table,  looking  over  the 
napery  and  silverware,  horribly  ill-bred,  Milly  thought.  Then 


FINE  FEATHERS  337 

she  grasped  that  they  were  reading  names  on  "little  card 
board  signs"  as  she  told  her  mother  afterward.  Inertia 
took  Milly  forward.  With  a  little  jolt  she  came  upon  her 
own  name.  It  startled  her. 

She  sat  down  at  once  and  then  got  up  again — hastily. 

She  expected  that  Nathan's  place  would  be  beside  her 
own ;  Mrs.  Mosely  would  have  fixed  it  that  way  if  she  knew 
anything.  But  apparently  Mrs.  Mosely  didn't  know  any 
thing,  because  Milly  found  herself  between  two  disturbingly 
strange  men,  one  a  "bald-headed  old  fool"  and  "a  tall,  sleek 
young  man  with  a  trick  mustache  who  looked  like  Charley 
Chaplin." 

Milly  beheld  that  she  "was  in  for  a  sickening  evening." 
She  wished  that  awful  Mrs.  Mosely  had  at  least  put  one 
woman  beside  her. 

Guests  finally  took  their  seats  when  Mrs.  Mosely  had 
taken  hers  —  up  in  Paris  a  hostess  was  always  the  last 
seated  and  more  usually  out  in  the  kitchen,  looking  after 
things  —  and  then  Milly  got  her  first  shock  of  that  evening 
of  shocks  when  she  shook  out  her  napkin  and  found  some 
one  had  hidden  a  roll  in  it.  Down  on  the  floor  went  the 
roll  and  Milly  had  quite  a  time  recovering.  The  fat  gentle 
man  told  her  not  to  mind  and  to  leave  it  for  the  servants 
to  recover  later.  But  Milly  remarked,  not  without  some  heat, 
that  "somebody  might  step  on  it  and  work  it  into  the  carpet", 
and  the  roll  episode  being  closed,  she  faced  her  "plate  of 
cracked  ice." 

In  the  next  five  minutes  Milly  discovered  oyster  cock 
tail  and  rather  approved  of  oyster  cocktail;  when  she  had 
held  back  to  see  which  spoon  the  Cynthia  person  employed 
and  how  she  employed  it,  finding  it  to  be  a  fork,  —  "pickle 
fork,  at  that!"  thought  Milly.  "And  one  for  everybody!" 
Then  Milly  "caught  on"  as  to  where  the  food  was.  As  fast 
as  you  disposed  of  one  course  the  servants  took  your  empty 
plate  and  brought  another.  Great  idea,  but  what  an  awful 
lot  of  dishes  you  had  to  have.  And  think  of  the  job  of 
washing  them  afterward! 

During  the  soup,  Milly  located  Nathan.  She  was  a  little 
surprised  at  Nathan.  He  was  proceeding  cautiously  but 
did  not  appear  at  all  distressed.  Nathan,  in  fact,  looked  as 
though  he  were  actually  enjoying  himself.  He  had  the  stout 
girl  in  silver-gray  on  one  side  and  a  tall,  cold-faced  Amazon 


338  THE  FOG 

in  black  upon  the  other.  And  he  was  carrying  on  conversa 
tion  with  both.  Milly  felt  rather  proud  of  Nathan.  Never 
until  this  moment  had  she  noticed  how  well  he  parted  his 
hair.  Maybe  she  had  not  done  so  poorly  in  marrying  Nathan, 
after  all. 

A  maid  distributed  plates  from  the  left  and  after  her 
came  another,  laying  knives  and  forks  softly  in  their  proper 
places.  Then  a  manservant  presented  the  various  dishes, 
and  until  Milly  noticed  that  the  others  were  not  doing 
it,  she  took  the  big  dish  from  the  servant's  hand  as  she 
helped  herself,  —  a  proceeding  which  perturbed  that  worthy 
greatly. 

The  fellow  with  the  trick  mustache  essayed  several  at 
tempts  at  conversation  which  Milly  answered  in  monosylla 
bles.  Then  the  fat  man  at  her  right  turned  to  her  with  a  sud 
denness  which  almost  made  her  upset  her  water  glass  and 
asked : 

"Have  you  seen  Barrymore  in  'Peter  Ibbetson'  yet,  Mrs. 
Forge?"  " 

Milly  had  not  seen  Barrymore  in  "Peter  Ibbetson."  In 
the  first  place  she  had  not  the  slightest  notion  who  Barry- 
more  was  and  in  the  second  place  she  had  not  the  slightest 
idea  of  what  he  should  be  doing  in  "Peter  Ibbetson"  or  any 
one  else,  and  how  he  managed  it. 

"Who's  Barrymore?"  demanded  Milly. 

"My  dear  woman!  Is  it  possible  you  don't  know  the 
Barrymores  ?" 

"One  can't  know  everybody,"  remarked  Milly  wither- 
ingly.  She  considered  this  neat  and  sophisticated,  wishing 
at  the  same  time  she  had  bought  a  dress  with  a  low  neck. 
She  had  as  good  shoulders  as  any  one  in  the  room.  Be 
sides,  this  was  New  York.  She  would  buy  a  "low  neck"  — 
a  "very  low  neck"  —  next  day.  She  was  glad  she  still  had 
almost  two  hundred  dollars  left  of  Nat's  money. 

"But  the  Barrymores,  Mrs.  Forge.  I  mean  Lionel  and 
John." 

"Are  they  brothers  —  or  something?" 

"Yes,"  collapsed  the  stout  man,  "Brothers?  Oh,  yes! 
Certainly!" 

"And  who's  Peter  Ibbet's  Son?" 

"Peter  Ibbetson — Ibbetson!  A  play,  you  know  —  at  the 
Republic." 


FINE  FEATHERS  339 

"Oh,"  exclaimed  Milly.  "You're  talkin'  about  a  show. 
What  kind  of  show  is  it?  Funny?" 

"No.  I  wouldn't  call  it  funny.  Although  first  night  was 
rather  amusing.  One  of  the  back  drops  caught  somehow  at 
the  dark-change  in  the  last  act.  Some  of  the  scenery  was 
in  distressing  danger  of  coming  down  on  Barrymore's  bed." 

"That  oughta  been  a  riot,"  observed  Milly.  She  felt  her 
self-confidence  returning  again.  She  was,  as  it  were,  getting 
along  famously.  "We  had  a  show  like  that  once  at  the  Opera 
House  up  to  Paris.  Some  of  the  scenery  fell  flat  and  knocked 
the  orchestra  leader  clean  into  the  first  violin.  They  couldn't 
ring  down  the  curtain.  They  couldn't  do  nothin'.  Just 
beller!  Funniest  part  was,  what  different  folks  was  doin' 
behind  the  scenes  when  the  thing  went  over.  One  man 
was  changin'  his  pants.  He  got  outter  sight  awful  quick!" 

The  fat  man  roared.  But  the  real  reason  for  that  roar 
entirely  missed  Milly.  He  wasn't  such  a  bad  sort,  after  all. 

Mrs.  Mosely  observed  that  Milly  had  sprung  a  highly  en 
tertaining  bon  mot  and  was  amusing  her  near-by  table  com 
panions  greatly.  She  leaned  forward.  The  fat  gentleman, 
in  fact,  was  growing  purple  in  the  face  and  giving  alarming 
symptoms  of  sliding  under  the  table. 

"Really,  Mrs.  Forge,  you  must  tell  us  the  joke,"  sug 
gested  the  hostess. 

"Yes,  please  do!"  pleaded  a  few  feminine  voices. 

The  attention  of  the  diners  thus  being  focused  on  her 
self,  Milly  colored  scarlet  and  felt  her  scalp  take  fire.  Con 
versation  ceased.  They  were  waiting. 

"I  —  I  —  this  —  this  man  and  I  —  were  talking  about  —  a 
show  that  come  to  Paris  one  night,"  stammered  Milly. 
"That's  our  home  town  —  Paris !  Up  in  Vermont,  you 
know!" 

"I  understand,"  smiled  Mrs.  Mosely.  Her  onyx  voice 
was  at  its  best.  "And  what  happened?" 

"Some  of  the  scenery  fell  flat  and  knocked  the  piano 
player  clean  into  the  first  violin.  They  couldn't  ring  down 
the  curtain.  They  couldn't  do  nothing  —  on  the  stage,  I  mean 
—  just  holler.  But  the  funniest  part  was  what  different 
folks  happened  to  be  doing  at  the  moment  the  thing  flopped 
over.  One  man  was  —  one  man  was " 

"Yes,  my  dear !" 


340  THE  FOG 

"One  man  was  changing  his  pants!"  gulped  Milly.  And 
waited  for  the  explosion  of  applauding  merriment. 

But  instead  of  an  explosion  of  applauding  merriment  came 
a  ghastly  silence.  Mrs.  Mosely  tried  to  smile  but  turned 
a  queer  pea-green.  The  stout  girl  beside  Nathan  looked 
wildly  around  the  table  and  jabbed  her  fork  quickly  into 
a  morsel  of  roast.  One  of  the  men  made  a  weird  noise,  — 
it  sounded  as  though  he  had  swallowed  a  worm,  a  long,  up 
holstered,  fuzzy  one.  A  little  red-haired  girl  giggled.  And 
poor  Nathan !  Nathan  was  suddenly  out  on  the  bounding 
billows  of  a  raging  main  looking  avidly  for  a  particularly 
inviting  spot  in  which  to  drown  with  neatness  and  despatch. 

"How  very  interesting!"  remarked  Mrs.  Mosely.  She 
turned  to  her  ever-present  help  in  time  of  trouble,  —  the  Old 
Gold  Georgette.  "Cynthia,  my  dear,"  she  suggested,  "and 
suppose  you  tell  us  that  other  amusing  anecdote  about  De 
Carter  when  he  tried  to  find  Mr.  Whitesmith  at  the  Hermit 
age,  and  ran  into  the  character  actor  who  looked  just  like 
him,  you  know !" 

Cynthia  caught  her  cue  and  the  cogs  of  the  universe  moved 
again.  But  it  had  been  a  hideous  ten  seconds  while  it  lasted. 

Milly  was  the  last  to  finish  her  food  at  each  course  and 
the  dinner  dragged  in  consequence.  She  never  noted  she  was 
holding  up  the  dinner.  She  essayed  other  conversation  with 
the  stout  man  after  a  time,  waving  choice  morsels  on  her 
fork  as  she  did  so,  before  putting  them  into  her  mouth.  Her 
knife  leaned  against  her  plate,  or  sprawled  at  rakish  angles 
from  other  dishes.  She  felt,  however,  that  those  present 
had  not  appreciated  the  delicious  comedy  in  her  anecdote. 
"High-brow,"  she  snapped  to  herself.  She  decided  she 
detested  Mrs.  Mosely,  and  as  for  the  Cynthia  person's  anec 
dote,  it  wasn't  funny  at  all. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  dinner  Mrs.  Mosely  led  the  way 
into  the  drawing-room  and  left  the  men  to  cigars.  The  big 
double  doors  between  the  two  apartments  were  then  closed. 
Again  Milly  was  "thrown  on  her  own."  And 

She  wished  to  Gawd  she  were  home! 

If  this  were  high  life  in  the  brilliant  metropolis,  give  her 
good  old  Paris,  where  folks  ate  their  food  naturally  and 
talked  about  subjects  a  body  could  understand :  the  weather, 
perhaps,  the  latest  film  at  the  Olympic,  what  bargains  Mich- 
alman  was  showing  in  his  basement,  how  many  chops  Bud 


FINE  FEATHERS  341 

Jones  gave  for  a  dollar.  What  fun  was  there  sitting  around 
like  a  lot  of  "dummies  at  a  wake",  nibbling  at  a  very  little 
food  in  slathers  of  dishes,  having  so  many  forks  it  took  all 
the  joy  out  of  eating  to  remember  to  use  the  right  one, 
and  made  one's  head  ache  beside? 

What  enjoyment  was  there  for  a  woman  to  be  stuck  be 
tween  two  men  whom  she  just  knew  wanted  to  talk  business, 
and  be  stiff  and  uncomfortable  and  starched  and  nerve- 
racked  to  death  for  two  mortal  hours  ?  Then  a  seance  in  the 
big  room  afterward  and  music  on  the  piano  that  sounded 
like  the  player  trying  to  see  how  many  chords  she  could 
touch  per  minute  or  how  many  trick  combinations  of  sounds 
she  could  manufacture  on  the  keyboard?  As  for  Milly, 
give  her  "Put  on  Your  Old  Gray  Bonnet",  or  "Alexander's 
Rag  Time  Band." 

No,  Milly  didn't  like  society.  One  agonizing  evening 
was  enough.  She  would  be  a  nervous  wreck  in  two  months 
if  she  had  to  endure  it  night  after  night  as  a  program. 
This  thing  she  decided  emphatically  off  in  a  corner  by  her 
self.  Nathan  was  not  going  to  take  any  job  where  a  steady 
menu  of  this  sort  of  thing  might  be  necessary.  Not  if  she 
could  help  it,  —  and  she  flattered  herself  that  she  could  and 
she  would. 

Milly  was  almost  in  tears  when  she  finally  culled  out  her 
husband. 

"I  wanner  go  home!"  she  almost  cried.  "And  if  you 
won't  come  with  me,  I'll  go  alone!"  That  a  lady  and  gen 
tleman  were  talking  with  Nathan  made  no  difference  to  Milly. 
She  had  enough.  She  wanted  to  go  home.  She  meant  what 
she  said. 

Nathan  excused  himself  as  adroitly  as  he  could.  And 
Milly  "sashayed"  from  the  drawing-room,  straight  to  the 
dressing-room  door. 

"We  must  say  good  night  to  Mrs.  Mosely,"  said  Nathan, 
before  he  started  for  his  own  wraps. 

"Oh,  you  can  do  it  for  me!  I  don't  ever  want  to  speak 
to  her  again!  I  think  she's  horrid!  She  asked  me  that 
jbke  about  the  pants  and  then  made  me  feel  like  thirty 
cents  when  I  told  it." 

"But,  Milly,  it'll  be  almost  insult  to  walk  out  this  way; 
ordinary  courtesy  demands  you  come  with  me  and  bid  her 
good  night.  Don't  you  want  to  be  courteous?" 


342  THE  FOG 

"Not  to  such  as  her!     No!     She's  too  much  of  a  higl 
brow !    She  makes  me  sick !    You  can  tell  her  I  said  so !" 
Milly  got  her  street  clothes  and  put  them  on  in  the  hallwa; 

—  as  she  might  have  "gone  off  mad"  at  a  surprise  party 
home  when  some  one  present  had  "slapped  her  face." 

Nathan  went  to  Mrs.  Mosely  and  apologized  for  his  wife's 
indisposition.  "She's  taken  suddenly  ill,"  he  explained,  "and 
I  must  hurry  to  the  hotel  with  her  at  once." 

Milly  was  anything  but  ill  when  they  went  down  the  steps 
at  last  and  headed  west  in  the  invigorating  night  air  toward 
the  Avenue.  Milly  continued  her  comment  anent  Mrs. 
Mosely  and  all  Mrs.  Mosely's  guests,  comparing  them  to 
sundry  "honest-to-God"  folks  up  in  Paris.  Nathan  was 
at  last  stung  to  remark : 

"That  was  a  rotten  break  you  made !  I  should  think  your 
own  intuitive  good  taste  would  have  told  you  that  those  peo 
ple  think  along  a  little  higher  plane  than  a  stage  hand  chang 
ing  his  pants.  That  might  be  excellent  humor  for  your 
father  up  in  Gridley's  tannery.  But  in  a  New  York  draw 
ing-room " 

"Well,  Gridley's  tannery  and  Paris  and  my  father  are  good 
enough  for  me!  And  you  needn't  think  you're  so  all-fired 
high-brow,  either.  It  wasn't  only  a  few  years  ago  you  was 
helpin'  skin  cows  right  alongside  my  father." 

"I  didn't  do  it  from  choice.     I  was  made  to  do  it." 

"I  suppose  you'll  be  telling  me  next  that  a  continual  bil 
of  fare  of  the  'class'  we  had  to-night  is  what  you'd  'like 
from  choice'?" 

"Certainly  it  is !    You  bet  it  is !    And  I  intend  to  have  it 

—  if  it's  possible  to  get." 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you  one  thing,  Nathan  Forge,  you'll  have 
it  without  me!    If  that's  'high-brow',  then  gimme  the  'flats, 
where  people  live  natural  and  enjoy  themselves!" 
"What  do  you  mean  —  you'll  have  it  without  me?" 
"Just  what  I  said.    I'll  go  back  to  Ma  —  for  good.    Oh, 
guess  I  can  earn  my  own  living  again!     I  did  it  once,  re 
member.     You  used  to  say  I  was  the  smartest  girl  in  the 
box-shop  —  once!"    And  Milly  began  to  sob  openly  as  she 
trotted  along  by  Nathan's  side.    Pedestrians  on  the  Avenue 
turned  and  stared. 


FINE  FEATHERS  343 


IV 

Extract  from  a  letter  mailed  from  the  New  York  office 
of  the  Thome  Knitting  Mills  under  date  of  October  3, 
1916,  to  Theodore  E.  Thorne,  vice  president  and  sales  man 
ager  at  the  main  offices  and  plant,  Paris,  Vermont: 

...  I  hardly  know  what  to  say,  Ted.  You're  putting  me  in 
a  rotten  dilemma.  God  knows  I'm  no  knocker.  Also  the  last 
thing  in  the  world  I'd  want  on  my  conscience  would  be  the  dirty 
work  of  knifing  a  poor  devil  in  the  back  because  he  hasn't  had 
advantages  which  some  of  us  have  been  lucky  to  receive. 
But  what  alternative  are  you  leaving  me  when  you  put  it 
up  as  a  question  of  policy  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  Com 
pany  ? 

Forge  came  down  here  and  spent  the  better  part  of  a  week 
going  over  things.  As  I'm  leaving  anyway,  I  was  absolutely 
unprejudiced  —  you  believe  that,  don't  you?  I  showed  him  all 
there  was  to  show.  He  impressed  me  as  being  a  fair  business 
man,  considering  his  age,  a  little  higher  than  the  average,  per 
haps.  He's  got  imagination  and  executive  ability,  especially  the 
last,  and  there's  not  a  doubt  he'd  work  his  head  off  to  make 
good.  I  think  he's  especially  endowed  with  the  faculty  for 
managing  help.  But  this  isn't  a  factory  down  here,  Ted.  The 
office  help  requiring  management,  or  even  the  local  sales  staff, 
are  almost  negligible.  This  job  calls  for  a  "mixer,"  a  diplomat, 
and  a  personality  capable  of  holding  the  trade  and  adding  to  it 
by  adroit  business  politics.  I  can  conceive  of  Forge  being  a 
fair  success  out  in  the  boardwalk  towns,  selling  union  suits  to 
merchants  who  wait  on  the  feminine  trade  with  their  vests  un 
buttoned  and  a  toothpick  between  their  lips.  But  running  up 
against  such  smooth  articles  as  old  Anstruther,  or  the  Caldwell 
boys  or  the  Perkinsnaith  people,  they'd  walk  through  him  like  a 
crooked  lawyer  driving  a  coach  through  a  will  written  on  the 
back  of  wall-paper. 

You  know  that  this  business,  as  the  New  York  territory  has 
always  done,  contains  a  big  portion  of  the  personal  element. 
Many's  the  time  we  might  have  lost  business  with  some  of  the 
heavy-weights  if  I  hadn't  been  "in  right"  personally  with  their 
families  and  womenfolk.  Take  Haymarker  and  the  Tonowanda 
affair  last  June:  you  may  not  have  known  it,  but  I  got  old 
Haymarker  and  his  wife  to  come  out  to  the  Long  Island  place 
for  the  week-end  —  or  mother  did,  which  amounts  to  the  same 
thing  —  and  played  around  with  him  until  the  psychological 
moment.  Before  he  returned  to  town  he  clapped  me  on  the 


344  THE  FOG 

shoulder  and  said :  "Let's  forget  the  business  fuss,  Fred.  We're 
too  good  friends  in  a  social  way  to  let  a  matter  of  a  few 
dollars  break  up  our  relations  outside  the  office." 

.  .  .  and  that's  how  young  Forge  must  carry  on,  and  I'm 
frank  to  tell  you,  Ted,  I  don't  believe  he's  there.  Oh,  he  may 
catch  on  in  a  year  or  so,  but  the  cost  to  the  company  in  the 
meantime  may  be  ruinous.  Why  should  the  Thome  Knitting 
Mills  pay  for  the  education  of  a  man  who  should  have  received 
that  education  at  home  from  his  parents  ?  It's  a  cruel  handicap 
he's  under,  but  business  is  business.  What  his  folks  can  have 
been  thinking  of  is  beyond  me.  And  his  wife  —  oh,  my  God! 

.  .  .  perhaps  the  average  outsider  would  say  that  a  man's  wife 
down  here  would  have  little  bearing  on  his  job.  But  believe  me, 
Ted,  it  isn't  so.  Maybe  I'm  over-emphasizing  the  social  part, 
but  business  is  sometimes  a  bit  more  than  price  asked  and  price 
paid.  There  are  times  when  personality,  family  connections,  tact, 
diplomacy,  politics  played,  by  a  fellow's  wife  in  a  social  way 
can  mean  thousands  of  dollars  in  the  course  of  a  year.  And 
poor  Forge  has  a  millstone  around  his  neck  and  an  anvil  tied 
to  each  wrist. 

.  .  .  I've  nothing  against  her  because  she  comes  from  a  small 
town.  But  just  because  a  person  comes  from  a  small  town  is 
no  license  to  show  themselves  as  mud-hut  peasants  who  wear 
their  boots  to  bed.  A  certain  nicety  of  taste  is  expected  of  the 
least  of  us.  And  honestly,  Ted,  that  girl  Forge  calls  his  wife 
is  absolutely  impossible.  He  must  have  found  her  and  married 
her  from  the  lowest  class  of  factory  help,  just  because  she  was 
female. 

.  .  .  she  came  to  the  dinner  in  a  cheap  afternoon  frock  whose 
shrieking  color  would  stop  a  train  —  she  clutched  him  like  a 
poor  relation  —  mother  was  almost  a  nervous  wreck  when  the 
ordeal  was  over,  and  I  should  have  been  kicked  for  pulling  any 
such  stunt.  She's  been  all  the  week  figuring  out  ways  to 
apologize  to  her  guests.  The  height  of  Mrs.  Forge's  mentality 
and  idea  of  dinner  wit  was  an  anecdote  about  somebody  up  in 
your  town  changing  his  trousers. 

...  of  course  you're  running  your  own  business  and  it's  none 
of  my  affair.  But  I  do  hate  to  see  all  the  good  work  I've  tried 
to  do  and  the  organization  I've  built  leak  away  or  go  to  smash 
through  being  turned  over  to  a  poor  country  boob  with  a  wife 
who  remarks  that  "the  servants  mustn't  be  onto  their  job  in  this 
place"  because  they've  neglected  to  set  out  the  toothpicks  along 
with  the  demitasses  —  and  actually  thinks  they  aren't. 

.  .  .  Forge  wants  to  learn  all  right  and  he  probably  will.  But 
the  New  York  office  of  the  Thome  Knitting  Mills  isn't  the  place 
to  teach  him,  and  beause  his  wife  is  so  pitifully  deficient  in  the 
common  fundamentals  of  etiquette,  I'm  afraid  the  opportunity 


FINE  FEATHERS  345 

is  not  for  him.     I'm  no  snob,  as  you  know,  Ted.     But  there 
are  some  things  that  simply  are  not  done. 

Nathan  entered  the  Paris  offices  of  the  knitting  mills  the 
day  following  and  instinctively  felt  that  something  was 
wrong.  A  certain  cordiality  and  solicitation  were  missing 
in  the  sales  manager's  manner.  His  behavior,  in  fact,  was  a 
bit  apologetic,  furtive. 

"Nat,"  began  the  other,  "it  seems  to  us  that  the  Pennsyl 
vania  and  middle-New  York  territory  is  in  such  a  precarious 
state  just  now,  on  account  of  the  prospect  of  war,  that  the 
directors  have  decided  it  for  the  best  interests  of  the  company 
not  to  transfer  you  to  New  York  for  a  while.  We  want  you 
to  keep  on  as  you  have  been  going  —  drumming  the  depart 
ment-store  trade." 

Nat's  disappointment  was  heart-rending, — for  a  moment. 

"Back  to  the  road  again?"  he  whispered  wearily.  "It's 
sort  of  monotonous,  Ted;  the  same  thing  over  and  over, 
week  after  week " 

"I  know,  Nathan.  But  unfortunately  there  are  those 
kinds  of  jobs  in  the  world  and  somebody's  got  to  fill  'em. 
With  war  in  prospect,  we  really  don't  feel  warranted  in 
making  the  shift.  That's  about  all  I  can  say,  After  all,  you 
know,  I'm  under  my  directors." 

"That's  tough,"  commented  Nat  finally.  "I'd  sort  of  set 
my  heart  on  getting  a  big  office  job  like  that  and  really  show 
ing  what  I  feel  capable  of  doing.  And  —  and  —  well,  I've 
sort  of  grown  beyond  small-town  living,  and  New  York  made 
me  feel  as  though  it  was  the  sort  of  thing  I'd  hungered  for, 
without  exactly  knowing  what  made  that  hunger." 

"I'm  sorry,  Nat.    But  business  is  business." 

That  night  Mrs.  Anna  Forge  met  her  son  on  Main 
Street. 

".  .  .  and  he  came  down  from  upstairs,  Nat!  I'll  swear 
he  came  down  from  upstairs!  And  what  could  he  have 
been  doing  up  there  that  was  all  level  and  on  the  square?" 

"What  were  you  doing  up  at  the  house,  to  catch  him?" 
.  "Well,  I  —  I  —  went  up  to  see  you  and  hear  all  about  your 
New  York  trip.  Milly's  bragging  all  over  town  about  a 
swell  dinner  they  gave  you  down  there,  and  how  you're 
going  down  there  to  live  and  have  swell  dinners  all  the 
year  'round." 


346  THE  FOG 

"Don't  worry,  Ma,  I'm  not  going.  The  Thornes  have 
changed  their  minds." 

Nathan  went  on  toward  home  at  the  end  of  another  ten 
minutes.  Grimly  he  considered  two  things  to  which  his 
mother  had  given  voice,  her  worst  fears  about  the  man  who 
had  come  down  from  the  upstairs  of  Nathan's  home  in  com 
pany  with  Milly  and  —  his  mother's  comment  after  she  had 
forced  him  to  tell  her  all  about  the  "swell"  dinner. 

"Oh,  Natie,"  she  had  cried  anxiously,  "I  do  hope  you 
remembered  your  manners  and  said  'please'  and  folded  your 
napkin  afterwards,  like  I  always  tried  to  teach  you  at  home !" 


"Milly,"  demanded  the  husband  when  he  faced  his  wife 
in  the  kitchen  half  an  hour  later,  "what  was  Si  Plumb  doing 
upstairs  with  you,  when  mother  called  the  first  of  the  after 
noon  ?" 

The  girl  flashed  him  a  look  of  defiance. 

"So !  Your  mother's  been  carryin'  tales,  has  she  ?  Well, 
it's  just  like  her!  If  you  want  to  know*  Mr.  Smartie,  I 
sent  for  Si  to  come  and  tighten  the  faucets  in  the  upstairs 
bathroom."  Si  had  long  since  quit  the  tannery  and  become 
a  steam-fitter  in  the  village. 

But  somehow  Milly's  explanation  sounded  thin. 

"I  could  have  done  such  a  simple  job  as  that,"  Nathan 
observed.  "You  didn't  need  to  call  Si  and  run  up  a  plumber's 
bill!" 

"You  tighten  bathroom  faucets  ?  You're  a  high-brow,  re 
member!  You're  above  tightening  bathroom  faucets  these 
days,  Nat  Forge !" 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DRIFTING 


America  was  not  going  to  preserve  her  neutrality  and  keep 
from  the  European  shambles  much  longer.  As  the  days 
passed  and  1917  drew  closer,  there  was  less  and  less  doubt 
about  it. 

The  Lusitania  tragedy  had  forecast  what  might  possibly 
come;  the  President's  famous  note  of  May  13  had  met  with 
general  approval.  Wilson  had  received  a  vote  of  confidence. 
He  was  free  to  deal  with  the  situation  created  by  the  various 
peace  proposals  of  the  winter  of  1916-1917.  But  the  nego 
tiations  which  followed  in  December  and  January  were  ob 
scure  at  the  time  and  the  vital  issue  by  no  means  clear. 
Then  on  the  twenty-second  of  January  came  the  announce 
ment  of  unrestricted  submarine  warfare.  Declaration  of 
war  on  April  6  was  only  a  matter  of  denouement. 

When  Madelaine  came  home  for  the  spring  vacation,  she 
was  hardly  in  a  mood,  with  the  swift  and  ominous  trend 
of  world  events  moving  about  her,  to  consider  any  advances 
of  a  marital  tenor  from  Gordon  or  any  other  man.  Then 
one  night  in  late  February  it  came  to  her  how  short  the 
space  can  really  be  between  a  blind  exasperation  and  intol 
erance  of  anything  threatening  a  fierce  desire  for  complete 
independence,  and  a  frantic  heart-cry  after  reliance  on  a 
man's  strength,  the  most  tender  and  intimate  dependence 
life  had  to  offer  her. 

She  would  arise  in  the  morning  fully  determined  to  post 
pone  her  studies  until  the  German  menace  was  blasted  for 
ever  and  follow  scores  of  her  sister  students  to  France, — 
to  work  out  her  own  salvation  on  bloody  fields  where  men 
in  the  abstract  needed  her  most.  She  went  to  bed  to  clutch 
the  counterpane  hysterically  as  the  most  lonesome  and  un 
wanted  woman  in  God's  bloody  world.  Between  these  two 


348  THE  FOG 

moods  she  swayed  back  and  forth,  wondering  at  times  if 
she  were  losing  her  capacity  for  straight,  cold-brained  rea 
soning. 

Gordon  came  up  to  the  house  that  February  night  and 
found  Madelaine  in  the  upstairs  library.  Mrs.  Theddon 
was  down  in  the  city  directing  some  Red  Cross  affair.  The 
servants  were  below  in  the  rear.,  out  of  sight  and  —  in  so  far 
as  Madelaine  went  —  out  of  mind.  A  coal  fire  glowed  beau 
tifully  in  the  open  grate.  In  silken  gown  which  only  accen 
tuated  the  strength  and  comeliness  of  her  figure,  the  young 
woman  sank  down  before  the  coals  with  Gordon  across  from 
her.  Neither  spoke  for  a  long  time.  Madelaine  knew  it 
was  no  ordinary  call  which  had  brought  Gordon  up  to-night. 
The  man's  manner  was  perturbing. 

"Madge,"  he  said  at  last,  "I've  been  doing  a  lot  of  think 
ing  lately." 

"About  what,  Gordon?" 

"About  the  war  —  and  myself." 

"I  wonder  if  we're  really  going  to  have  war,  Gordon?" 

"We  are !  There's  not  a  doubt  about  it.  They're  expect 
ing  it  at  the  Works  and  preparing  accordingly." 

"Mother  told  me  last  night  you'd  been  promoted  again. 
I'm  glad  you're  doing  so  finely.  I'm  really  proud  of  you !" 

"That's  just  the  trouble,  Madge.  Sooner  or  later  I've 
got  to  reach  a  decision." 

"What  sort  of  decision?" 

"Whether  I'm  going  to  be  a  'desk  cootie'  through  this  Big 
Show,  or  whether  I'm  going  to  do  my  stunt  like  a  he-man." 

"Explain  a  little  more  fully,  Gordon.  Do  you  mean " 

"If  we  get  into  the  Big  Show,  there's  going  to  be  a  draft. 
Everybody's  talking  about  it  down  at  the  office.  There's 
no  other  way,  with  so  much  factional  feeling  among  these 
hyphenated  Americans.  If  they  have  a  draft,  it's  only  rea 
sonable  to  suppose  that  certain  of  us  who  know  our  jobs 
extra  well  at  home  may  be  ordered  to  enlist  and  yet  to  re 
main  on  those  jobs  as  being  more  valuable  at  home  than 
stabbing  Germans.  It  looks  as  if  that  sort  of  thing  might 
come  to  me  —  old  Dalliworth  is  making  plans  along  that  line 
already.  And  Madge  —  I  —  I " 

"Don't  be  afraid  to  talk  it  out,  Gordon.  You  may  tell 
me  without  fear  of  being  misundersood." 

"You  bet  I  can!"  cried  the  fellow  thickly.     "God  bl«s* 


DRIFTING  349 

you,  Madge!  What  I  started  to  say  was,  I  can't  make  up 
my  mind  which  I  ought  to  do  —  stay  home  and  direct  the 
making  of  shells  or  go  to  France  and  have  a  part  in  firing 
them  off!" 

"Which  do  you  want  to  do,  Gord?" 

"I  think  I  want  to  go  to  France,  Madge.  I  know  my  job 
and  all  that.  But  —  well,  there  ought  to  be  lots  of  older 
chaps  unfitted  for  active  service  who  could  do  the  home  job 
as  well  as  myself." 

"Then,  Gordon,"  said  the  woman,  without  an  instant's 
hesitation,  "I'd  go  to  France!" 

Silence  fell  between  them.  It  was  broken  by  the  man's 
long  sigh.  He  looked  around  the  room. 

"This  used  to  be  your  mother's  chamber,  wasn't  it,  Madge 

—  before  she  had  the  house  done  over  ?   It  was  in  this  room 
I  met  you  first." 

"You  —  as  you  are  now,  Gordon  —  were  never  that  hot 
headed  little  boor.  Not  only  do  I  refuse  to  admit  it,  but 
I  can't  conceive  it.  You've  changed  so,  Gordon.  You're 
not  the  same  fellow  at  all." 

He  laughed  a  depreciating  laugh. 

"Well,"  he  said  philosophically,  "if  that's  true,  you  know 
what  I  told  you  down  in  Boston  a  while  ago.  You  and 
you  alone  have  been  responsible.  'You  made  me  what  I 
am  to-day — »I  hope  you're  satisfied.''1  And  once  more  he 
laughed.  But  it  was  plain  the  laugh  did  not  come  from  his 
heart. 

"How  long  have  we  known  each  other,  Gord?  Let's  see, 
I'm  tweny-seven  this  spring  and  I  was  eleven  when  mother 
brought  me  here  and  gave  me  this  home ;  that's  sixteen  years 
ago!  It  doesn't  seem  possible  —  sixteen  years!  How  time 
slips  away!" 

Gordon  leaned  forward  toward  her,  elbows  on  his  knees. 

"Madelaine,"  he  asked  suddenly,  sincerely,  "are  you  happy 

—  really  happy?" 

"Why  do  you  ask  me  such  a  question,  Gord?  Of  course 
I'm  happy!  After  all  I've  had  done  for  me,  why  shouldn't 
I  be  happy  ?" 

"There  seem  to  be  times  —  forgive  me,  Madge,  if  I'm 
rude  —  but  there  seem  to  be  times  when  I  fancy  you're  not. 
I  don't  know  exactly  what  it  is  —  an  expression  on  your 
face,  perhaps,  a  glance  of  your  eye  —  I  could  almost  believe 


350  THE  FOG 

you  were  secretly  grieving  over  something,  dear.  Isn't  it 
so?" 

The  girl  felt  the  springs  of  emotion  beginning  to  well 
deep  in  her  spirit.  She  averted  her  face.  She  looked  down 
at  her  hands,  laced  together  suddenly  and  tightly  in  her  lap. 

"You  know,  Gordon,  I've  always  had  a  slight  mist  of 
tragedy  hovering  over  me,  never  knowing  who  my  parents 
were,  how  I  came  to  be  found  as  I  was.  A  woman  could 
never  quite  forget  that,  especially  when  strangers  have  been 
kind  to  her  and  tried  to  treat  her  like  their  own." 

"I  like  that  pretty  little  fantasy  associated  with  you  as  a 
girl,  Madge.  I  mean  about  the  fairies  leaving  you  for 
earthly  persons  to  discover.  It  makes  you  very  sweet  and 
rare,  Madelaine.  To  me  you  will  ever  be  that  —  a  fine  and 
tender  woman,  brought  to  earth  in  babyhood  by  the  fairies !" 

"Gordon !    Please  —  don't !" 

"How  can  I  help  it,  Madelaine?  Every  man  must  have 
some  sweet,  rare,  fine,  tender  woman  in  his  life,  mustn't 
he  —  to  work  for  —  to  please  —  to  bring  out  the  best  that's 
in  him  ?  And  having  been  that  to  me,  how  can  I  help  telling 
you  so,  dear  girl?" 

"I've  just  been  —  myself  !"  the  girl  responded  huskily. 

"Yourself!  Yes!  Thank  God  for  that!  Yourself! 
Madge,  does  a  woman  ever  realize  what  she  can  mean  to  a 
man  sometimes  —  who  loves  her  because  she  has  given  him 
a  goal  and  a  promise  —  of  still  finer  things  to  be  —  and  faith 
—  the  essence  of  things  hoped  for,  but  not  seen?" 

"I'll  tell  you  the  truth,  Gordon.  Yes,  there  are  moments 
when  I'm  miserable  —  terribly  miserable  —  and  not  because 
of  my  clouded  parentage,  either.  Sometimes  I  don't  think 
I  quite  know  what  it  is.  And  yet  —  and  yet  —  at 
others " 

"Madge,  you've  never  been  really  in  love,  have  you  — 
away  down  deep  inside  —  so  deep  that  you  could  give  that 
loved  one  up,  if  need  be,  to  insure  that  loved  one's  happi 
ness  ?" 

"No,  Gordon,  I  don't  believe  I  have." 

"That's  strange,  Madge.  It's  extraordinary  for  a  woman 
to  reach  twenty-seven  and  never  have  known  a  love  affair  — 
a  real  one.  And  yet  in  your  case,  I  don't  know  that  it's  so 
extraordinary,  after  all.  You're  so  different  in  many 
ways " 


DRIFTING  351 

He  stopped  abruptly  at  the  mask  of  pain  which  slipped 
over  the  girl's  cameo  features.  "So  different!"  Always 
she  had  heard  that  "so  different."  And  never  once  had  she 
ever  wanted  to  be  different,  not  realizing  how  beautifully 
Gordon  meant  it,  what  a  compliment  he  was  trying  to  pay 
her,  entirely  aside  from  any  question  of  policy  or  to  abet  his 
own  suit. 

"Please  don't  say  I'm  different,  Gordon,"  she  pleaded. 
"It  hurts  — terribly!" 

"But  you  are  different,  you  know.  Not  queer  or  eccentric, 
I  don't  mean.  You're  so  much  more  elegant  and  delicate  — 
oh,  tosh!  I  don't  mean  to  sound  silly,  or  indulge  in  the 
callow  ravings  of  a  school  kid.  But  —  oh,  Madge,  the  man 
who  gets  you  will  get  a  gift  direct  from  the  fairies,  indeed!" 
He  waited  a  moment  and  then  added  softly,  "And,  God !  — 
how  I'd  appreciate  being  that  man !" 

Tumultuous  emotions  swept  and  swayed  the  girl.  She 
studied  the  toe  of  her  satin  house  slipper.  That  feeling  of 
helplessness  came  over  her  again  —  the  sensation  of  drifting, 
drifting  —  on  and  on  —  into  Gordon  Ruggles's  arms  at  last 
— •  his  wife !  Well,  and  what  of  it  ?  He  was  proving  himself 
a  man  and  he  loved  her.  There  was  not  a  doubt  about  that. 
He  loved  her. 

"Gordon,"  she  said  unevenly,  "you're  going  to  keep  at  me 
and  keep  at  me  until  you  make  me  your  wife,  aren't  you?" 
There  was  no  rebuke  in  her  voice. 

"In  what  other  way,  dear,  does  a  man  win  the  heart  of 
the  woman  he  loves?" 

Madelaine  sprang  from  the  divan  and  walked  down  the 
room.  She  threw  up  her  soft,  bare,  beautiful  arms.  From 
her  throat  came  a  cry. 

"Yes,  I'm  different  —  different!  —  different  because  ro 
mance  has  never  come  to  me  as  it  has  come  to  other  girls  — 
sweet,  wild  romance  that  would  make  me  love  a  man  so 
deeply  and  fiercely  I'd  follow  him  over  the  world  and  live 
with  him  in  a  hovel,  to  be  close  beside  him !  —  love  him  so 
that  he  would  beat  me,  if  you  please,  and  I  could  suffer  it  — 
because  I  loved  him!  Oh,  Gordon!  Gordon!  You  may 
win,  after  all,  for  you've  overcome  the  most  of  any  man  I've 
ever  known.  But  you'll  never  know  the  heart  of  a  woman! 
You'll  never  know!  You'll  never  know!" 

He  kissed  her  hand  when  he  left  her  at  the  door  that  night. 


352  THE  FOG 

Despite  his  great  love,  despite  the  inspiration  she  was  in 
his  life  —  was  he  hurting  her  by  denying  her  that  Great  Ro 
mance  she  might  possibly  find  after  he  had  married  her? 

For  that  would  be  a  terrific  hurt.  Madelaine  would  be 
true  as  steel  to  any  man  whom  she  had  once  promised  to 
love,  honor  and  cherish,  come  what  might,  afterward.  She 
was  that  kind  of  woman. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  LAST   STRAW 


Nathan  was  facing  the  prospect  of  a  dreary,  rainy  Sunday 
in  a  Wilkes-Barre  hotel  when  that  "turning-point"  telegram 
arrived  from  Thorne.  Since  that  day  in  Springfield  when 
he  had  received  a  wire  from  Mildred  concerning  his  child's 
death,  telegrams  had  not  been  without  a  flavor  of  calamity. 
Yet  Thome's  message  on  its  face  looked  harmless  enough. 
It  read : 

DROP  EVERYTHING   COME   HOME  AT  ONCE   IMPOR 
TANT   MISSION   FOR  YOU. 

T.  E.  THORNE. 

An  important  mission  for  him!  Nathan  had  a  queer, 
telepathic  intuition  that  something  had  happened,  or  was 
about  to  happen,  that  was  to  affect  his  career  and  perhaps 
his  whole  life  vitally.  It  never  left  him.  In  fact,  it  grew 
upon  "Kim  as  he  entered  Vermont  the  next  afternoon  and  his 
train  drew  into  Paris  about  half -past  seven  o'clock. 

Usually  Nat  wired  Milly  when  he  was  returning  from  his 
trips ;  his  wife  was  piqued  and  exasperated  when  he  "walked 
in  on  her"  with  no  food  ready  in  the  house  or  when  she 
was  in  the  midst  of  neighborhood  or  family  activities  such 
as  occupied  her  time  while  her  husband  was  absent.  But 
he  had  been  so  intent  on  making  his  trains  that  this  time  he 
had  forgotten.  When  the  man  finally  alighted  on  the  depot 
platform  Sunday  evening,  the  place  showed  no  signs  of  life ; 
not  even  a  Ford  taxi  met  the  train.  So  Nathan  left  his  suit 
cases  in  the  baggage  room  to  be  brought  up  next  morning 
and  started  toward  the  business  section  afoot. 

He  entered  the  Metropolitan  Drug  Store  pay-station  and 
called  Ted  Thorne.  Ted  was  out  for  the  evening  and  Nat 


354  THE  FOG 

promised  to  call  him  later.  Then  he  called  Milly  to  inform 
her  that  he  had  returned  to  town  and  would  be  up  in  a  few 
minutes.  Milly,  did  not  answer  the  'phone. 

"Probably  down  to  her  mother's,"  he  said.  So  he  stopped 
for  a  lunch  at  the  filite,  lit  a  cigar  and  headed  for  Preston 
Hill  at  a  leisurely  pace.  This  was  about  half -past  eight. 

It  was  one  of  those  blowy  nights  in  early  March  with  the 
wind  drying  up  the  snow  puddles  and  clouds  scurrying  across 
the  face  of  a  high  white  moon.  Spring  would  be  on  New 
England  in  a  handful  of  weeks.  Already  most  of  the  snow 
had  gone  and  only  sickly,  dirty  patches,  the  last  vestiges 
of  winter  drifts,  were  disclosed  on  the  northern  sides  of  walls 
and  fences  where  the  sunlight  failed  to  touch  them. 

His  house  was  dark  when  he  finally  turned  into  Vermont 
Avenue.  As  Milly  had  not  answered  the  'phone,  he  thought 
nothing  of  it.  He  went  up  the  front  veranda  steps  and  let 
himself  into  the  hall  with  his  latchkey.  The  warm  odor  of 
his  own  home  was  pleasant  and  inviting,  the  house  welcomed 
him  after  his  three-weeks'  absence  by  its  mellow  darkness. 
He  pressed  on  the  lamp  button  in  the  hall  and  called  his 
wife's  name.  But  he  received  no  answer.  The  house  was 
very  quiet.  The  wind  blew  a  loose  blind  somewhere.  On 
the  distant  kitchen  sink-shelf  a  brassy  alarm  clock  ticked 
faintly.  Nathan  hung  hat  and  coat  on  the  hall  hat -tree  and 
pressed  out  the  hall  light  as  he  moved  into  the  sitting  room 
on  the  west  side. 

He  pulled  the  tiny  chain  on  the  reading  lamp  and  looked 
around  for  his  mail.  It  contained  nothing  of  interest,  most 
of  it  being  bills.  He  glanced  over  the  recent  copies  of  the 
Daily  Telegraph.  But  his  thoughts  were  upon  Ted  Thorne 
and  why  he  should  have  been  called  so  abruptly  off  the  road. 

After  a  time  the  moon  got  around  to  where  it  cast  a  splotch 
of  lemon-colored  light  on  the  sitting-room  floor.  The  win 
dow  shades  had  not  been  drawn.  Nathan  glanced  up  and 
saw  the  cold,  round  disk  behind  the  gaunt,  waving  tree 
boughs.  He  turned  his  chair  —  a  heavy  wing-rocker  —  so 
that  it  faced  the  window,  its  back  to  the  room.  Then  he 
reached  a  hand  and  pulled  off  the  reading  light  to  enjoy  the 
wild,  windy  beauty  of  the  outside  night. 

He  had  turned  many  bitter  things  over  in  his  mind  and 
it  was  after  nine  o'clock  when  the  man  heard  a  strange 
sound.  It  seemed  to  come  from  the  rear  of  the  house,  out 


THE  LAST  STRAW 


355 


on  the  back  porch  beyond  the  kitchen.  At  first  Nat  thought 
it  some  freak  of  the  wind.  Then,  as  the  latter  died  down  and 
perfect  quiet  reigned  for  a  moment,  the  sound  came  again, 
sharp  and  distinct. 

Some  one  had  tried  several  keys  in  the  back-porch  door. 
Finally  they  had  found  one  which  fitted.  A  gust  of  wind 
swept  through  the  house  and  the  door  was  immediately 
closed. 

Nathan  had  no  desire  to  startle  his  wife.  He  was  about 
to  rise  and  call,  to  advise  her  of  his  presence  in  the  darkened 
home,  when  there  came  a  thunderous  thud  in  the  kitchen  and 
an  oath. 

A  man  was  in  the  kitchen!    He  had  fallen  over  a  chair! 

Nathan  drew  back  into  the  protective  depths  of  the 
rocker.  He  was  frightened.  Most  normal  people  know 
some  degree  of  terror  when  it  is  evident  burglars  are  in 
the  house.  He  debated  what  he  should  do.  Then  it  oc 
curred  to  him  to  keep  silent  a  moment,  to  see  what  the  in 
truded  was  after  and  where  he  would  go. 

The  burglar  apparently  righted  the  chair  and  groped  his 
way  to  the  sitting  room,  where  Nathan  held  his  breath  and 
waited,  completely  hidden  by  the  enormous  back  of  the 
rocker.  The  intruder  came  in,  still  groping.  Nathan  could 
hear  his  deep  breathing  through  the  semi-dark. 

Apparently  the  man  stood  for  a  time  in  the  center  of  the 
room,  hesitant.  Then,  to  Nathan's  bewilderment,  he  sank 
down  on  the  sofa.  Nathan  heard  the  springs  creak  plainly. 
Next  came  the  scratch  of  a  match,  the  silhouette  the  flare 
made  of  adjacent  furniture  on  west  wall  and  ceiling,  and  the 
acrid  odor  of  cigar  smoke.  A  queer  burglar,  this!  He 
sat  down  on  the  family  sofa  and  lit  a  smoke  before  pro 
ceeding  to  his  loot.  And  Milly  might  come  at  any  minute. 

Milly  came.  She  let  herself  in  the  front  way.  Nathan 
knew  when  she  had  arrived  by  another  draught  of  spring 
wind  and  the  sharp  click  when  the  front  door  closed  and 
the  lock  snapped.  But  she  did  not  turn  on  the  lights.  Her 
footstep  sounded  on  the  hard- wood  floor  of  the  hall  and  he 
knew  without  looking  around  that  she  was  standing  in  the 
door. 

The  sofa  springs  creaked.  Nathan  waited  for  Milly  to 
shriek  when  she  beheld  a  burglar  smoking  in  the  room.  He 
had  his  mind  ready  to  reach  for  the  chain  of  the  reading 


356  THE  FOG 

lamp  and  snap  it  on.  After  that,  —  well,  Nathan  still  knew 
how  to  use  his  fists. 

But  Milly  did  not  shriek.  Instead,  he  heard  her  say  in 
the  most  normal,  natural  intonation  of  voice,  softened  with 
a  trace  of  humor: 

"Don't  take  you  long  to  make  yourself  comfortable,  does 
it?" 

And  a  man's  coarser  bass  returned  from  that  dark: 

"You  bet  it  don't!    Leave  it  to  your  uncle!" 

"I  hope  to  Gawd  nobody  spotted  you  gettin'  in.  That 
ol'  Miss  Pease  next  door  puts  her  eyes  on  the  doorstep 
when  she  sleeps,  same  as  she  puts  out  her  cat." 

"Naw,  I  waited  until  a  cloud  went  over  the  moon  before 
I  left  the  shadow  o'  the  fence.  But  I  did  knock  my  shin 
over  a  chair  in  the  kitchen.  I'll  break  that  dam'  thing  if  you 
leave  it  in  my  way  again  —  fell  over  it  last  Sunday  night, 
very  same  way !" 

Nathan  was  too  stunned  to  move.  He  seemed  all  at  once 
to  have  no  body,  so  completely  had  all  physical  sensation 
fled.  He  might  have  been  a  disembodied  spirit  sitting  in 
that  chair  —  which  he  was,  so  far  as  the  man  and  his  wife 
were  concerned.  And  they  thought  him  six  hundred  miles 
away!  He  waited.  He  knew  Milly  was  pulling  off  her 
gloves  and  unpinning  her  hat. 

"You  didn't  light  any  lights,  did  you?"  It  was  Milly's 
voice  that  asked  it. 

"What  th'  hell  sort  o'  boob  do  you  take  me  for,  Mil? 
Besides,  whatter  we  need  lights  for  —  you  an'  me  ?" 

The  sofa  springs  suddenly  creaked  with  Milly's  added 
weight. 

"Gawd,  kiss  me,  honeybunch !  Gimme  a  good  old  hum 
dinger.  There  ain't  nobody  can  raise  my  hair  with  kissin' 
like  you  can,  Si,  or  anything  else,  for  that  matter.  Seems 
just  as  if  a  gorilla  had  me  —  and  I  was  perfectly  willin 
the  gorilla  should!" 

They  kissed. 

Later-day  motion-picture  censors  would  have  shortened 
that  kiss  considerably,  say  about  forty  seconds. 

"Honestly,  Si,"  cried  the  girl,  "when  you  kiss  me  like 
that,  I  just  wanner  die  —  or  wish  I  could!" 

"Some  little  kisser  I  am,  huh?  Nat  don't  kiss  you  like 
that,  now,  does  he,  what?" 


THE  LAST  STRAW  357 

"Oh,  Gawd !  If  he  could  do  it  that  way  —  or  ever  had  — 
maybe  you'd  never  had  the  chance,  Si.  A  girl  likes  to  be 
mauled  once  in  a  while  —  you  know  —  treated  rough !  But 
he's  too  much  of  a  high -brow  to  maul  anybody.  I  suppose 
it  ain't  poetical !" 

Milly  laughed.  Plumb  swore.  As  for  Nathan,  —  he  sank 
deeper  into  his  chair.  His  mind  was  in  that  state  which 
a  wrecked  body  sometimes  knows  between  a  mangling  acci 
dent  and  the  moment  when  blasted  nerves  begin  to  respond 
and  bring  excruciating  agony. 

"Mil,  honestly,  this  can't  go  much  longer !  You  ain't  his 
wife,  Mil.  You  never  was  his  wife.  He  had  no  business 
to  marry  you  in  the  first  place.  You  belong  to  me.  And 
the  right  thing  all  around  would  be  to  either  come  out  flat- 
footed  and  have  a  show-down,  or  else  run  off  and  just  love 
as  much  as  we  please  —  forever.  I  may  be  a  roughneck,  Mil, 
but  I  hate  this  bein'  a  sneak !" 

"I  know,  Si,  but  think  o'  the  dough  I'm  layin'  by !  I  got 
almost  seven  hundred  saved  right  now.  Did  I  tell  you  about 
the  New  York  dress?  Nat  gimme  two  hundred  and  fifty 
to  buy  some  togs  for  that  high-brow  dinner.  Do  you  know 
what  I  did?  I  got  a  thing  that  cost  seventeen  ninety-eight 
and  made  him  think  I'd  blowed  the  whole  wad.  Made  two 
hundred  and  thirty  at  a  crack,  right  there !  Gee,  he's  easy ! 
He  believes  anything  I  tell  him.  Just  because  I'm  a  woman, 
he  takes  everything  I  say  for  gospel  truth." 

"I  don't  care  nothin'  about  his  money  —  unless  you  wanner 
blow  it  on  yourself.  I  got  money.  And  I  can  get  a  job 
anywheres.  And  honestly,  Mil,  I'm  dam'  tired  and  sick 
every  time  a  blind  blows  thinkin'  it's  him  come  back  by 
surprise  to  catch  us  and  raise  hell." 

"Aw,  he  wouldn't  raise  hell.  He  ain't  got  the  starch." 
Milly  laughed  and  apparently  pulled  Si's  hair.  "He's  a 
high-brow  and  a  poet.  Poets  don't  fight !" 

"Don't  they,  though?"  commented  Plumb.  "I  had  one 
scrap  with  Nat.  I  ain't  hankerin'  to  mix  up  in  another.  He 
could  even  gun  me  for  what  we're  doin'  now,  Mil,  and  I 
wouldn't  have  a  leg  to  stand  on." 

"He  wouldn't  gun  you  —  not  if  I  was  around,"  snapped 
Milly.  "I'd  just  like  to  see  him.  He's  the  least  o'  my  wor 
ries.  I  can  handle  him !" 

"But  it  ain't  alone  that,  Mil.    I  want  you  myself !    You're 


358  THE  FOG 

my  class.  Honestly,  when  I'm  at  work  some  days,  I  got 
a  regularly  gnawin'  inside  to  feel  your  arms  'round  me 
and  hear  your  old  ribs  crackin'  when  I  squeeze  you  in  an 
honest-to-Gawd  hug!  I  wancher  always,  Mil.  I  thought 
a  heap  o'  you  before  you  ever  took  up  with  him " 

"I  thought  he  was  class — and  rich,"  lamented  the  girl. 
"He  sure  did  bunco  me  fierce." 

"Well,  yer  kid's  gone  and  he  don't  love  you  no  more  or 
he  wouldn't  go  off  months  at  a  stretch  and  leave  you  — 
exposed  to  me!"  Si  laughed.  "Mil,  you  and  me  just  got 
to  fix  this  up.  It'd  probably  jolt  His  Nibs  terrible  to 
have  a  divorce.  Besides,  he'd  probably  start  messin'  things 
up.  Still  it  oughtta  be  done.  Where's  he  now?  When's 
he  comin'  home?" 

"He  oughta  be  doin'  Pennsylvania  this  week.  It's  his  time 
for  it.  He'll  be  back  about  a  week  from  Thursday  night." 

"Mil,  what  th'  hell  do  we  care  for  him  or  anybody?  Let's 
cut  out  this  sneakin'-in-the-back-door  business.  Let's 
blow!" 

There  was  silence  for  a  long  time  after  that. 

"Where'd  we  go,  Si?" 

"I  gotta  swell  chance  to  go  down  to  Jersey  and  get  a 
job  in  a  shipyards.  They're  payin'  big  money  for  riveters. 
A  feller  was  tellin'  to  the  shop  yesterday  that  if  we  get 
fightin'  the  Germans,  them  that  works  on  ships  won't  have 
to  go  across.  Let's  blow,  Mil!  Let's  get  outta  here  for 
good  and  all!" 

"There's  Ma  and  Pa  and  the  kids " 

"Yer  Ma  and  Pa  wanner  see  you  happy,  don't  they? 
And  they  know  Nat  ain't  doin'  it.  Then  what's  the  answer  ? 
Besides,  I  can  get  along  with  your  Pa  a  lot  better'n  Nat. 
Yer  Pa  and  me  speak  the  same  language!" 

Another  lunge  of  the  couch  springs. 

"Treat  me  rough,  kid!"  cried  the  girl  softly.  "Treat 
me  rough  enough  and  —  I  might !" 

Nathan  reached  up  and  pulled  on  the  light. 


II 

Milly  shrieked.     Plumb  sat  stunned.     He  blinked  in  the 
abrupt  illumination  like  an  imbecile. 


THE  LAST  STRAW  359 

Nathan  arose  to  his  full  height.  He  viewed  the  two. 
He  drew  a  long  breath  for  strength,  poise  and  self-control. 
Then  he  leaned  back  against  the  table  and  regarded  them 
gravely. 

Milly  sat  up  on  the  edge  of  the  sofa.  Her  hair  was  down 
and  her  bodice  open.  Hairpins  dropped  on  the  hard, 
polished  floor  at  her  feet. 

"Where'd  you  come  from?"  she  cried  when  she  could 
speak. 

"This  chair!     I've  been  sitting  here  since  nine  o'clock." 

"You  heard?" 

"Yes  —  I  heard !    How  could  I  help  it  ?" 

Milly  mustered  up  her  courage. 

"You  dirty,  eavesdropping  sneak!" 

Nathan  raised  his  hand.  On  his  harrowed  face  was  a 
sad,  disillusioned  smile.  He  addressed  himself  to  Plumb. 

"How  long  has  it  been  going  on,  Si?" 

The  steam-fitter  was  dressed  in  his  Sunday-evening  best. 
His  Sunday-evening  best  was  slightly  rumpled  by  his  liaison 
with  Milly.  Once  he  cast  his  eyes  about  as  though  debating 
whether  to  try  for  the  door  or  dash  through  the  window 
glass. 

"How  long  has  what  been  going  on?"  he  asked  weakly. 

"Come,  come!  Let's  not  spar.  It  isn't  necessary." 
Nathan  took  his  hands  from  the  table  edge  and  folded  his 
arms.  "You  needn't  try  to  get  up  nerve  to  leap  through 
the  glass.  I'm  not  going  to  hurt  you !  —  I  may  be  a  poet 
but  I'm  not  quite  a  fool." 

Si  breathed  easier.  He  sat  up.  They  were  a  cheap,  dis 
heveled,  foolish-looking  pair,  ranged  there  side  by  side,  a 
cow  of  a  woman  and  a  bull  of  a  man.  Was  there  any 
reason  why  they  should  not  seek  each  other's  embrace? 

"I  been  lovin'  Mil  ever  since  you  married  her."  The 
steam-fitter  confessed  it  sheepishly,  picking  at  his  broken 
finger  nails.  "I  was  lovin'  of  her  when  you  stepped  in  to 
the  shop  and  cut  me  out.  If  you're  goin'  to  blame  anybody, 
blame  yourself!" 

"I  am  blaming  myself,"  Nathan  t  returned  quietly.  "All 
I  can't  understand  is,  Milly  —  how  could  you  do  it  ?" 

"Do  what  ?"  snapped  the  girl. 

"All  the  time  I  was  trying  to  do  things  for  you  —  get  you 
this  home  —  furnish  it  as  you  wanted  —  buy  you  clothes  — 


360  THE  FOG 

take  you  with  me  on  my  trips  —  introduce  you  to  people  in 
New  York  —  hand  you  out  more  money  than  you'd  ever  be 
able  to  earn  yourself  —  and  all  the  time  you  loved  another 
man  behind  my  back !  You  were  carrying  on  with  him  while 
I  had  the  utmost  confidence  in  you  —  at  least,  I  refused  to 
believe  what  all  the  town  tried  to  tell  me." 

Milly  began  to  cry. 

"It  was  little  Mary,"  she  sobbed.  "You  was  her  father. 
Besides,  you'd  never  understand  how  or  why  I  loved  Si. 
I  didn't  suppose  you  ever  could." 

"I  should  think  you'd  have  felt  like  a  virago,"  declared 
Nathan  disgustedly.  "What  else  can  you  call  yourself?" 
He  looked  down  upon  her  as  upon  some  biological  specimen 
that  was  exhibiting  strange  phenomena. 

"I  don't  know  what  it  means,  but  I  can  guess  —  and  if 
I'm  that  for  lovin'  Si  more'n  you  —  well,  I  ain't  ashamed 
of  it!  It's  bein'  done  every  day!  You  could  go  see  a  few 
classy  films  if  you  wasn't  so  high-brow !" 

"That's  plenty,  Milly.  You  love  Plumb  enough  to  follow 
him  into  disgrace.  Is  that  it?" 

"With  my  kind  of  love  there  ain't  no  disgrace.  In  'Sex 
and  the  High  Heart'  it  showed  where " 

"And  you  love  Milly  enough  to  make  her  your  legal 
wife?"  Nathan  interrupted  in  hard  voice  to  the  steam-fitter. 

"You  betcha  life  I  do !    I'd " 

"Then  take  her !"  snapped  Nathan  contemptuously.  With 
lips  closed  tightly,  he  turned.  The  episode  was  at  an  end. 

"Huh !  You  want  to  get  rid  o'  me,  don't  you  ?  —  Same's 
your  father  got  rid  o'  your  mother!  I  might  o'  known!" 

"Shut  up,  Mil!  Don't  be  a  fool!"  ordered  Plumb.  He 
had  a  man's  brain  and  masculine  grasp  of  proportion,  slug 
gish,  but  equipped  nevertheless  with  a  certain  amount  of 
common  sense.  "You  mean  this,  Nat?" 

"Do  I  look  as  if  I  were  jesting?  Two  wrongs  never  yet 
made  a  right.  I  wronged  Milly  when  I  took  her  from  you. 
Every  day  since,  I've  wronged  myself.  I  see  now  —  as  I 
should  have  seen  from  the  case  of  my  father  and  mother  — 
that  all  the  legal  and  religious  promises  in  the  world  can't 
affect  raw  nature.  People  mated  will  love,  honor  and 
cherish  one  another.  People  not  mated  may  live  in  the 
same  house,  eat  at  the  same  table,  sleep  in  the  same  bed 
for  a  thousand  years.  Every  moment  of  those  thousand 


THE  LAST  STRAW  361 

years  they'll  be  prostitutes.  I  see  it  now.  And  any  one 
who  teaches  or  preaches  differently  is  an  ass.  Get  out!" 

Plumb  heard  and  agreed  inwardly  that  Nat  was  a  high 
brow.  "Must  o'  swallowed  a  dictionary!"  he  explained 
afterward.  But  from  the  dangerous  predicament  he  needed 
no  second  invitation  to  exit. 

"But  I  gotta  get  my  clothes!"  cried  Milly,  "and  all  my 
things !" 

"All  your  'things'  will  be  sent  to  your  mother's  house  in 
the  morning.  Get  out!" 

"Then  you  mean  for  me  to  get  a  divorce?" 

"I'll  get  the  divorce,  thank  you!  I've  taken  this  sort  of 
thing  lying  down  long  enough.  I  said  get  out !" 

"Come  on,  Mil,"  ordered  Silas.  "I  know  a  place  we  can 
go  for  to-night.  How  long'll  it  take  you  to  get  that  divorce, 
Nat?" 


in 

Ted  Thorne,  in  the  library  of  his  home  at  ten-thirty 
that  night,  beheld  the  face  of  his  young  salesman  with 
anxiety. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  Nat,  what's  the  matter?    Sick?" 

"No,  just  a  bit  upset,  that's  all,  Ted.  You  wired  me  to 
come  home  in  a  hurry  and  I  forgot  to  telegraph  my  wife. 
I  reached  the  house  to  find " 

"Yes?" 

"That  she  loved  that  Plumb  fellow  —  the  steam-fitter  that 
works  for  Holcomb." 

"You  caught  them?" 

"Yes.    I  caught  them!" 

Nathan  stretched  his  legs  and  drew  a  long  sigh.  His  lips 
were  very  firm.  His  self-control  was  admirable. 

"And  what's  the  answer?"  demanded  Thorne. 

"She's  gone  with   Plumb.     I  told  her  to  go." 

"You  told  her  to  go !  My  God !  I'd  have  got  a  gun  and 
plugged  that  steam-fitter  so  full  of  holes " 

"The  man  who'll  so  lower  himself  as  to  run  amuck  and 
shoot  anybody  up  for  the  sake  of  a  woman  who  doesn't 
love  him  enough  to  be  true  to  him  deserves  exactly  what 
the  jury  hands  him  in  case  they  fail  to  disagree !" 

"But  there's  such  a  thing  as  the  Unwritten  Law  and " 


362  THE  FOG 

^Unwritten  fiddlesticks!  Let's  get  down  to  business. 
What's  this  important  mission  you  want  to  send  me  on?" 

"Suppose  we  smoke,"  suggested  Ted  weakly.  He  was 
too  upset  at  the  moment  to  discuss  business.  When  the 
cigars  had  been  lighted  he  sat  with  his  chin  deep  in  his 
chest  for  a  time  and  then  said  frankly,  "You've  had  a  sort 
of  a  rotten  experience  with  women,  haven't  you,  Nat?  Oh, 
I  know  all  about  it !  Most  of  the  town  does.  Your  mother 
—  that  Gardner  girl  —  now  your  wife  —  say,  Nat,  the  mar 
vel  to  me  is,  that  regardless  of  it  all,  there  doesn't  seem  to  be 
the  least  shred  of  cynicism  in  your  whole  make-up.  I've 
got  to  hand  it  to  you,  Nat.  I  don't  understand  it." 

"It's  nothing  but  common  sense,  Ted.  What's  the  use 
of  showing  yourself  a  mean,  small-bored,  surly  little  runt, 
rooting  about  the  earth  or  frothing  cheap  spleen,  just  be 
cause  you  haven't  had  the  chance  to  know  the  right  people? 
It's  this  way,  Ted :  When  I  was  a  kid,  and  even  later  in 
my  'teens,  I  felt  that  I'd  been  handed  a  raw  deal.  I  got 
an  awful  dose  of  it,  or  thought  I  did  —  such  a  dose  of  it  that, 
frankly,  I  began  to  get  curious  about  it.  I  couldn't  place 
any  other  construction  on  it  finally,  Ted,  but  that  some 
where,  somehow,  there  was  a  purpose  behind  it.  Uncon 
sciously  these  last  few  years,  I've  been  searching  to  de 
termine  just  what  that  purpose  could  be.  I've  searched 
the  Bible.  I've  read  a  lot  of  what  all  the  big  thinkers  in 
other  ages  have  left  behind.  I've  watched  people  —  other 
folks  in  trouble.  Why  should  some  fellows  be  born  with 
silver  spoons  in  their  mouths  and  a  whole  regiment  of 
solicitous  relatives  standing  around  at  birth  and  afterward, 
to  help  them  stir  with  it,  and  other  fellows  have  to  scratch 
for  themselves,  buy  their  own  spoon  and  do  most  of  their 
own  stirring?  Ted,  there  must  be  a  reason  behind  all  this 
hodgepodge  of  life.  Ever  stop  to  think  about  it?  Human 
vicissitudes,  Ted,  seem  to  be  the  only  things  in  the  universe 
that  aren't  subject  to  pretty  well-defined  laws  for  pretty 
sharply  defined  purposes.  The  seasons  come  and  go  —  seed 
time  and  growing  time  and  harvest  —  for  a  purpose. 
Showers  follow  muggy  weather  —  to  water  the  thirsty  earth. 
Even  the  very  nitrogen  from  our  lungs  in  devitalized  ex 
halation  becomes  food  for  the  fairest  flowers.  It's  a  pretty 
intricate  universe,  Ted,  with  precious  little  happening  by 
chance.  All  but  the  ups  and  downs  of  human  life.  Do  you 


THE  LAST  STRAW  363 

mean  to  tell  me  that  human  life,  the  highest  organism  in  all 
nature,  runs  hit  or  miss?  I  can't  believe  it,  Ted.  The 
very  fact  that  there's  no  apparent  reason  for  all  our  ups 
and  downs  convinces  me  there  is  a  reason.  And  it's  simple 
as  dirt.  There's  some  of  us  deficient  in  some  attribute  or 
other  that  only  raw  dealing  and  struggle  make  strong. 
Others  have  follies  and  weaknesses.  Sorrow  and  hard  luck 
burn  the  dross  away  or  show  the  whole  stuffing  of  us  is 
dross  and  not  worth  the  Almighty  monkeying  with  at  all. 
The  whole  trouble  happens  to  be  that  we  poor  mortals 
don't  know  what  the  assay  of  ourselves  was  —  before  we 
came  into  the  darned  world  and  started  living  in  it  in  the 
first  place.  So  we  can't  know  what  we  need  and  what 
we  don't  need.  And  we  kick  and  we  caterwaul  and  we 
revile  and  we  squirm.  Or  we  show  we're  only  cheap  stuff 
and  'turn  cynical'  as  you  call  it.  But  I'm  beginning  to 
believe,  Ted,  that  people  who  let  themselves  sink  into  self- 
pity  and  get  cynical  and  rail  against  the  ups  and  downs  of 
life  are  only  cheating  themselves.  They're  probably  de 
liberately  knuckling  under  on  precisely  the  load  of  trial  and 
tribulation  they  need  to  make  them  strong  —  in  this  world- — 
or  for  some  other  race  —  on  some  distant  planet  —  further 
on!  Got  it?  Them's  my  sentiments'  on  the  woman  mess. 
The  class  is  dismissed.  Now  let's  get  down  to  business !" 

"You're  a  philosopher !"  gasped  Ted  Thome  weakly. 

"Until  a  man  becomes  a  philosopher  in  some  form  or 
other,  he's  going  to  have  a  mighty  hard  scratch  in  this 
world,  Ted,  to  dig  up  reasons  for  all  that  happens  to 
him." 

Ted  Thorne  looked  at  his  salesman  in  frank  admiration. 
He  saw  a  prematurely  old  young  fellow  with  fine  flecks  of 
gray  beginning  to  show  at  his  temples,  even  at  twenty- 
seven.  There  were  deep  creases  of  still  deeper  strength 
about  his  mouth.  His  eyes  were  calmer  and  held  a 
wounded  look  at  times  which  melted  into  growing  reassur 
ance  that  life,  after  all,  was  mostly  what  we  make  it.  Nose 
was  prominent.  Mouth  and  chin  were  stubborn,  though 
lips  came  together  evenly.  His  head  was  perfectly  propor 
tioned.  His  hands  were  the  slender  hands  of  the  artist,  the 
builder,  the  creator.  He  had  the  properties  of  piano  wire, 
somehow  —  wire  capable  of  producing  the  finest  melodies  in 
all  nature  when  properly  tightened  and  tuned  —  yet  strong 


364  THE  FOG 

enough  to  bear  a  weight  more  out  of  proportion  to  its  size 
and  stress  than  any  other  substance  in  existence. 

"Nathan,"  he  said  gravely,  "we're  going  to  have  war; 
did  you  know  it?" 

"I  hope  not!" 

"All  the  same,  we're  going  to  have  war.  And  if  we  have 
war,  there'll  be  a  draft.  Before  that  comes,  I  want  to 
utilize  your  services  in  doing  something  for  the  company 
we  can't  spare  any  other  man  to  do.  I  believe  it'll  be  ex 
tremely  agreeable  to  yourself,  too  —  a  change  —  an  educa 
tion —  an  opportunity  to  get  out  and  see  what  the  world  is 
like.  I  want  to  send  you  abroad." 

"Abroad!"  gasped  Nathan. 

"Your  wife's  elimination  comes  at  an  especially  happy 
time,  old  man.  Besides,  a  change  of  scene  may  soften  the 
sting  of  the  experience.  How  long  will  it  take  to  start 
the  divorce  business?" 

"A  week  to  start  it,  perhaps.  The  case  can't  be  heard 
until  June,  anyhow." 

"It'll  be  purely  mechanical,  of  course,  seeing  it  probably 
won't  be  contested." 

Nathan  nodded. 

"Where  do  you  want  me  to  go?"  he  asked  quietly. 
"France?" 

"Siberia!" 

Thorne  made  the  announcement  as  he  might  have  named 
Rutland,  Bennington  or  Troy,  New  York. 

"What !" 

"Here's  the  story,  Nat.  About  eight  months  ago  we 
manufactured  a  lot  of  shirts  for  the  Russian  government. 
Ships  were  at  a  premium  to  transport  goods  across  the 
Atlantic.  Beside,  they  might  be  subject  to  seizure  going 
up  through  the  Baltic  if  the  German  fleet  came  out.  So 
we  routed  those  goods  across  America  and  shipped  them 
over  the  Pacific.  But  you  know  what's  happening  up  in 
Russia.  And  here  we  are,  with  about  forty  thousand  dol 
lars'  worth  of  goods  stuck  somewhere  in  the  Orient,  and 
what's  going  to  become  of  them  if  we  don't  send  a  repre 
sentative  to  look  out  for  them,  the  Lord  only  knows.  Nat, 
the  directors  couldn't  give  you  that  New  York  job  because 
of  the  impediment  your  wife  was  —  I'd  just  as  soon  say  sc 
now.  But  we  can  give  you  this  trip  and  a  bigger  job  wher 


THE  LAST  STRAW  365 

you  get  back,  if  the  war  turns  out  the  way  we  hope.  We 
want  you  to  go  to  Vladivostok  within  the  next  thirty  days 
and  look  after  the  placing  of  those  goods  in  the  hands  of 
the  proper  parties." 

"Whew!"  exclaimed  Nathan.  "A  mere  trifle!  What 
else?" 

"Nat,  old  man,  we've  got  confidence  that  you  can  work 
it  out,  or  we  wouldn't  send  you.  Well  get  your  passports 
and  routing  —  to  sail  from  San  Francisco  on  or  about  the 
first  of  April.  And  you  can  have  until  that  time  to  wind 
up  your  affairs.  You  may  be  gone  a  devil  of  a  time  and 
circle  the  world  before  you  get  back.  But  it'll  be  a  college 
education  and  I  don't  want  you  to  refuse." 

"Ill  go  —  of  course,"  assented  the  lad.  But  for  a  time 
his  gaze  was  blank. 

He  was  thinking  of  his  father,  last  heard  from  in  Japan 
—  directly  in  his  route. 

IV 

A  dour  time  followed  when  Mrs.  Anna  Forge  heftrd 
that  Nathan  had  been  slated  for  a  trip  to  the  Far  East. 

She  acclaimed  in  the  highways  and  byways  that  the 
Thornes  were  sending  her  boy  to  his  death,  to  be  gnawed 
by  wolves  and  lashed  with  knouts.  She  visited  old  Jim 
Thorne  in  his  offices  and  told  him  what  she  thought  of 
him.  Nathan  had  to  be  called  to  take  her  away.  The  week 
before  Nat  left  town  she  clawed  his  face  when  he  tried  to 
get  her  out  of  my  house,  whither  she  had  come  to  invoke 
my  intercession  in  stopping  the  mad  enterprise. 

"After  all  I've  done  for  him,  he  goes  off  to  the  other 
side  the  world  and  leaves  me!  Casts  me  aside  like  an  old 
shoe !  He  shan't  go !  He  shan't !  He  shan't !" 

It  developed  that  she  was  not  half  so  much  concerned 
for  Nathan's  welfare,  or  what  might  possibly  happen  to 
him  in  the  Orient,  as  she  was  for  herself  and  how  she  was 
going  to  live  in  the  meantime. 

With  Nathan's  wife  eliminated  at  last,  of  course  God  had 
shown  plainly  enough  that  He  wished  the  son  to  devote  the 
rest  of  his  days  and  dollars  to  his  darling  mother. 

She  went  and  saw  a  lawyer  about  it  and  when  the  lawyer 
was  cool,  she  visited  the  editor  of  the  local  paper  and 


366  THE  FOG 

wanted  a  "piece"  inserted  therein,  flaying  the  lawyer  alive 
and  exposing  him  as  a  double-dealer,  a  horse  thief,  a  wife 
beater  and  a  villain  of  the  deepest  dye. 

Nathan  gave  her  a  hundred  dollars  and  a  five-pound 
box  of  chocolate  caramels  —  the  kind  with  nuts  in  them  — 
whereupon  Mrs.  Forge  conceded  that  Siberia  might  have 
its  good  points  and  would  he  write  to  her  every  week  and 
be  sure  to  wear  his  heavy  underwear  in  those  awful  Siberian 
winters  ? 

Nathan  promised  and  Mrs.  Forge  departed  through  the 
town  to  spend  seventy-two  of  the  hundred  dollars  before 
five  o'clock  on  clothes  for  Edith's  youngsters.  Not  be 
cause  Edith's  youngsters  especially  needed  the  clothes,  but 
because  Mrs.  Forge  had  the  hundred  dollars. 


CHAPTER  X 

FIRST    LIGHT 


The  afternoon  and  evening  before  Nathan's  departure 
he  spent  with  me.  An  arrangement  was  finally  effected 
whereby  Mrs.  Forge  received  the  money  accruing  from  the 
sale  of  Nathan's  household  goods,  and  with  an  additional 
sum  deposited  with  me  to  keep  her  during  his  absence,  she 
went  down  to  start  living  with  Edith.  Her  own  mother 
had  died  at  the  time  Nathan  worked  in  the  tannery  and  she 
"was  on  the  outs"  with  her  three  brothers  and  their  wives. 
So  bag  and  baggage  upon  Edith  she  descended  and  mother 
and  daughter  "had  words"  before  she'd  been  in  Edith's  home 
six  hours.  That,  however,  was  no  concern  of  Nathan's 
prior  to  his  departure.  He  was  very  patient  and  tender 
with  her  when  he  saw  her  off  on  her  train.  But  he 
turned  to  me  with  a  philosophical  smile  afterward  and  re 
marked,  "Of  all  troubles,  Bill,  there  are  no  troubles 
quite  like  family  troubles,  are  there?"  Father  Adam  in 
the  Garden  probably  originated  the  remark  after  the  well- 
known  dispossess  notice.  Anyhow,  the  afternoon  and 
evening  before  Nat's  departure  he  spent  with  me. 

It  was  a  sunny  day  in  late  March  and  it  cleared  off  into 
a  beautiful  starlit  evening.  We  roamed  about  town  and 
talked  of  many  things  before  dinner,  for  deep  down  within 
both  of  us  was  the  vague  dread  that  perhaps  it  was  our 
last  walk  and  talk,  that  we  might  never  see  each  other  again. 
Then  in  the  evening  we  sat  in  my  living  room  and  smoked 
our  pipes,  and  the  past  was  brought  back  vividly  again. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  group  of  small  boys  we 
encountered  interning  mimic  Huns  for  sedition  and  the 
reminiscence  it  called  up  of  the  afternoon  back  in  Spanish 
War  time  when  we  played  "Hang  the  Spy"  and  "Slaves  in 
the  Dismal  Swamp."  These  were  only  two  of  many  anec- 


368  THE  FOG 

dotes  over  which  we  had  much  laughter  to  hide  the  ache 
in  our  hearts. 

We  talked  of  the  day  we  had  first  met  in  the  school  yard 
in  East  Foxboro;  those  walks  homeward  in  the  late  after 
noons;  the  day  that  Bernie  Gridley  had  driven  old  Caleb's 
mare  home  in  terror  because  Nat  wished  to  present  her 
with  a  deceased  rodent  as  a  gift  with  which  she  could 
"trim  up  a  room."  We  lived  again  our  early  days  in  Paris, 
Bernie's  birthday  party  when  Nathan  presented  the  little 
girl  with  a  bust  of  Caesar,  the  "happiest  day"  off  in  the 
woods  at  the  Sunday-school  picnic. 

"By  the  way,"  said  I  suddenly,  "what's  become  of  Bernie, 
anyhow?  I  don't  think  she's  been  back  here  to  Paris  since 
her  mother  died." 

"Old  Caleb  told  me  one  evening,  Bill,  and  I've  always 
considered  it  confidential;  but  I  guess  there's  no  harm  in 
telling  you  —  now.  Most  every  one  in  Paris  thinks  she 
went  abroad  after  school,  with  some  friends  from  Spring 
field." 

"And  didn't  she?" 

"No,  she  didn't.  Bernie  got  into  trouble  with  a  man. 
The  trip  abroad  was  only  camouflage  to  cover  up  the 
scandal.  She  never  went  abroad.  Her  baby  didn't  live 
and  I  guess  it  hardened  Bernie  —  the  whole  experience. 
And  if  the  truth  were  known,  I  think  that's  what  killed 
her  mother.  It  was  a  body  blow  to  the  Duchess  'after  the 
nice  way  in  which  Bernice-Theresa  had  always  been  brought 
<p.'  You  remember  how  she  suddenly  withdrew  from  her 
grand  direction  of  village  and  church  affairs  under  the 
excuse  she  had  heart  trouble.  It  wasn't  heart  trouble.  The 
woman's  bump  of  ego  got  the  coup  de  grace,  Bill.  It  fin 
ished  her!" 

"Old  Caleb  knew?" 

"In  time  he  found  out.  But  —  poor  old  Caleb !  Do  you 
know  what  he  remarked  to  me  one  night,  Bill?" 

"I  can't  imagine." 

"It  was  the  Sunday  night  that  I'd  first  quarreled  with 
Mildred  because  her  father  brought  gin  into  our  house 
and  got  drunk  at  Sunday  dinner.  I  went  up  to  spend  the 
evening  with  Caleb  and  get  cheered.  I  had  to  tell  him 
something  of  what  I  was  going  through  with  Milly.  That 
recalled  my  experience  with  Carol  and  even  something  of 


FIRST  LIGHT  369 

my  earlier  calf-love  for  his  daughter.  He  was  silent  for 
a  long  time  and  then  he  sighed.  'Bub,'  said  he,  'don't  think 
you're  the  only  man  on  earth,  young  or  old,  that  ain't  been 
able  to  get  along  with  women  nor  understand  'em.'  You 
can  imagine  how  he  said  it.  'You'll  find  there's  lots  of 
fellows  can  pal  with  men  and  make  friendships  the  grave 
can't  bury.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  weaker  sex,  life's 
just  one  dam'  thing  after  another.  And  most  of  'em 
wears  petticoats  and  gets  their  way  with  tears/  said  he. 
Poor  old  Gridley!  I  guess  he's  had  his  family  troubles, 
too." 

"But  what  became  of  Bernie?" 

"Old  Caleb  saw  that  Bernie  had  been  through  some  ter 
rific  experience  and  wasn't  long  worming  it  out.  He  didn't 
have  much  to  say.  All  the  same,  he  wanted  her  to  come 
back  to  Paris  and  keep  house  for  him.  They  quarreled 
before  Bernie  returned  to  Springfield  —  with  the  mother 
not  two  days  buried.  And  I  guess  Bernie  said  some  snippy 
things  that  cut  the  old  man  pretty  deep.  It  seems  old  Caleb 
had  a  love  affair  when  a  young  man,  but  the  girl  broke  it 
off  because  she  didn't  think  herself  competent  to  be  his 
wife.  He  stood  in  just  that  awe  of  the  sex  that  he  didn't 
try  to  persist  and  overcome  that  foolish  little  objection. 
And  the  disappointment  gashed  deep.  He  married  the 
Duchess  much  as  I  married  Mildred.  The  wound  healed 
but  the  scars  never  left  his  heart.  And  Bernie  learned 
of  it  and  twitted  him  about  it.  Her  principal  indictment 
of  old  Caleb  was  that  he  had  been  content  to  remain  a 
small-town  man  and  bring  her  up  as  a  small-town  girl  so 
that  when  she  got  out  in  the  world  'among  real  people', 
as  she  called  it,  she  was  always  at  a  disadvantage." 

"There  was  a  rumor  about  the  place  a  few  years  ago 
that  she  married  a  Chicago  millionaire." 

"She  did.  But  whether  she  found  happiness  with  him 
seems  to  be  unknown,  at  least  back  here  at  home.  I  don't 
believe  her  dad  has  heard  a  word  from  her  since  she  left 
in  high  dudgeon  after  her  mother's  funeral."  Nathan 
paced  along  by  my  side  for  a  quarter-mile  in  silence.  Then 
he  laughed  sadly  and  said,  "Bill,  did  you  ever  know  about 
me  asking  Bernie  to  marry  me,  the  week  before  she  went 
away  to  school?" 

"Marry  you !    Why,  Bernie  was  only  about  fifteen " 


370  THE  FOG 

"I  know  it!  That's  why  it's  so  amusing — about  as 
funny  as  the  'Death  of  Little  Nell.'  It  was  down  along 
the  pathway  through  the  Haskell  meadow  —  the  'short  cut' 
from  Matthews  Court  to  Windsor  Street  —  all  built  up  now 
with  bungalows.  I  met  her  and  proposed  to  her  desperately 
—  poor  short-trousered  little  ass  that  I  was.  But  she  was 
mad  at  me;  she  said  I  hadn't  the  backbone  of  a  fish.  If 
I  was  half  a  man  I'd  get  a  gun  and  shoot  dad  for  whaling 
me  that  picnic  day  in  front  of  everybody.  She  ended  by 
calling  me  a  freckled- faced  little  frump  and  declared  when 
she  married  any  one,  it  was  going  to  be  a  millionaire.  Well, 
she  made  good  there,  all  right.  But  the  way  she  scorched 
me  at  the  time  surely  blistered  for  many  a  month  afterward. 
I  remember  I  returned  home,  took  all  her  letters  and  tied 
them  up  with  a  ribbon  —  my  first  rosary.  I  hid  them  away 
out  in  the  ell  attic  of  the  Spring  Street  house.  By  gosh, 
they  must  be  there  yet!  I  haven't  thought  of  them  from 
that  day  to  this!" 

So  that  last  walk  of  Nathan's  and  mine  ended  by  making 
a  trip  to  the  Spring  Street  house;  my  friend  had  a  little 
hunch  that  he  would  like  to  see  if  those  letters  were  still 
hidden  there  and  read  them  over  again,  because  of  what 
they  had  once  stood  for  in  his  precocious  young  life.  A 
family  by  the  name  of  Bailey  had  bought  the  Spring  Street 
place  and  grudgingly  gave  consent  for  us  to  search  the 
garret.  Nathan  found  the  packet,  laid  there  on  the  mellow, 
brown  rafters  in  the  dark  through  sixteen  years  and  smelling 
acridly  of  dried  plaster,  dank  soot  and  moist  creosote  from 
the  near-by  kitchen  chimney. 

After  dinner  that  night,  as  we  smoked  our  pipes,  Nathan 
opened  them,  —  a  packet  of  boy-and-girl  love  notes  faded 
with  the  flight  of  time  and  bringing  back  the  joys  of  Long 
Ago.  Scrawled  sheets  where  "he  was  mad"  and  "she  was 
mad"  and  he  had  spoken  to  some  other  little  girl  yesterday, 
and  she  had  permitted  Sammy  Sargent  to  walk  home  from 
school  with  her  and  carry  her  books.  There  were  dozens  of 
them.  And  though  Nathan  smiled  at  the  "till-death-do-us- 
part"  endings,  I  knew  they  were  vibrating  raw  heart  chords. 
Excoriations  of  Nathan's  dad,  intrigues  for  him  to  "skin 
out"  and  go  with  her  to  parties,  little  petulant  fault  findings, 
all  were  very  sweet  now,  misty,  as  those  years  had  become 
with  the  nebulous  glow  of  Boyhood  Romance. 


FIRST  LIGHT  371 

"Bill,"  said  my  friend  finally,  "I've  got  a  hunch  I'll  call 
off  in  Chicago  and  look  Bernie  up.  I  might  return  these 
letters  to  her  as  an  excuse  for  seeing  her,  if  nothing  else. 
I'd  like  to  talk  over  old  times  with  Bernie,  even  if  I  was 
a  mushy  young  calf.  Yes,  I'll  stop  off  in  Chicago  and 
look  Bernie  up.  After  all,  a  man  rarely  forgets  his  first 
love,  never  mind  how  many  follow." 

We  mentioned  Milly  only  once  in  our  talk  that  last  night. 
She  had  disappeared  from  town  immediately  and  so  had 
Plumb. 

"It  was  all  my  mistake  —  marrying  her  in  the  first  place, 
Bill,"  he  said.  "I  had  brains  enough  to  know  better  but 
not  the  common  sense  to  exercise  them.  And  I  was  lonely 
—  God,  how  lonely !  Poor  Milly !  After  all,  she  was  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning." 

He  went  away  on  the  same  train  next  forenoon  on  which 
Carol  Gardner  had  left  our  homely  little  railroad  station, 
nine  years  before. 

Only  it  wasn't  raining  the  morning  Nathan  left.  The  sun 
was  shining  —  shining  gloriously  —  bright  and  warm.  I  was 
too  deeply  concerned  with  bidding  my  friend  good-by,  how 
ever,  to  attach  much  significance  to  the  sunshine. 

So  we  parted  —  for  War ! 

Old  Caleb  Gridley's  train  reached  Paris  at  twelve  o'clock. 
He  missed  bidding  Nat  farewell  by  an  hour. 


II 

Queer  things  happen  in  life.  Just  beyond  Buffalo  that 
night,  the  train  newsboy  came  through,  crying  the  evening 
dailies.  The  papers  were  black  with  headlines.  The  big 
munitions  plant  at  Russellville,  New  Jersey,  engaged  in 
making  shells  for  the  British  government,  had  blown  up 
that  afternoon,  killing  hundreds,  destroying  the  town.  The 
conflagration  was  still  burning,  with  shells  exploding  in 
the  vitals  of  the  flames  like  a  small  battle  transferred  to 
this  side  the  Atlantic. 

Nathan  read  the  account  of  the  disaster  like  a  hundred 
million  others  that  evening,  thinking  "Such  is  war!" 

He  found  my  wire  when  he  reached  The  Morrison  in 
Chicago.  I  thought  he  should  know ;  the  gypsy  trail  of  the 


372  THE  FOG 

world  spread  before  him  now  with  many  mystic  and  perhaps 
romantic  twists  and  turns  yet  to  be  negotiated.-  I  worded 
my  telegram  thus: 

MILDRED  RICHARDS  IN  LIST  RUSSELLVILLE  DEAD 
IS  MILLY  FOLKS  JUST  RECEIVED  WORD  PLUMB  HAD 
TAKEN  JOB  SHIPYARDS  NEARBY  IS  UNHURT  NO 
TRACE  MILLY  FOUND  BEST  WISHES  PLEASANT  TRIP 
MOTHER  WIFE  AND  SELF 

WILLIAM. 

Ill 

It  was  a  week  before  Nathan  located  Bernice.  Not  be 
cause  he  did  not  know  her  address ;  he  had  procured  it 
from  Elinore  Carver  who  had  married  a  local  furniture 
man  and  with  whom  Bernie  had  kept  up  an  intermittent 
correspondence  since  leaving  Paris.  It  was  because  Milly's 
passing  affected  him  grievously.  Somehow  it  was  difficult 
to  shake  off  the  presentiment  that  in  ordering  her  from  the 
house  that  Sunday  night,  he  had  unwittingly  sent  her  to 
her  death.  Certainly  she  would  not  have  left  with  Plumb 
so  soon  and  gone  to  work  in  the  munitions  plant.  I  think 
he  went  to  Bernie's  apartment  on  the  North  Shore,  seeking 
some  poor  solace  in  a  woman's  company.  Anyhow,  think 
ing  to  surprise  her  and  never  dreaming  she  would  not  be 
glad  to  see  him,  he  dressed  in  dinner  clothes  one  Wednesday 
evening  and  set  out  for  the  address  Elinore  had  supplied. 

The  place  where  Bernice  now  resided  was  an  exclusive 
apartment,  with  an  onyx  marble  entrance  and  a  negro  'phone 
attendant  to  announce  callers  to  rooms  above. 

"Yo'  is  one  of  de  guests,  ah  s'pose,"  commented  the 
African,  and  then,  before  the  puzzled  Vermonter  could 
respond,  "De  guests  is  to  go  up  wifout  bein'  announced. 
Flo'  Three,  'partment  Three-Fifty-Fo'." 

Nathan  went  up  in  the  automatic  lift. 

A  Japanese  boy  answered  his  ring  and  immediately  the 
door  was  opened,  from  regions  behind  came  jazzy  music. 

"May  I  see  Mrs.  DuMont?"  asked  my  friend. 

The  Oriental  grinned  and  held  wide  the  door. 

"You  please  to  give  me  your  name,"  suggested  the  Jap. 
"I  tell  her  to  come  out  to  see  you." 


FIRST  LIGHT  373 

"What's  going  on  —  a  party  ?" 

But  the  Oriental  only  grinned  the  more  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"Well,  tell  her  a  man  from  her  old  home  town  is  here 
and  would  like  a  few  moments  with  her.  Forge!  Nathan 
Forge!" 

And  in  a  few  moments  Bernie  came. 

Nathan  was  shocked,  badly  shocked.  He  had  seen 
Bernice  on  the  streets  of  Paris  once,  at  the  time  of  her 
mother's  funeral.  But  he  had  not  beheld  her  in  a  "close 
up"  or  spoken  with  her  since  the  day  in  Haskell's  pasture. 
He  looked  at  the  woman  approaching  him  now  and  —  and 
she  was  Bernice  Gridley  —  but  oh,  how  changed ! 

Nathan  knew  she  was  of  an  age  with  himself,  just 
turning  twenty-seven.  She  looked  forty  and  not  very  suc 
cessful  in  looking  it,  either.  She  was  half  a  head  shorter 
than  Nathan  and  had  to  look  slightly  upward  into  his  eyes. 
Yet  she  was  big-boned  and  coarsened,  and  the  daring  gown 
she  wore  did  nothing  to  soften  the  outlines  of  coarseness 
in  her  figure.  The  gown  was  plainly  expensive,  yet  on 
Bernie  it  was  hideous.  It  was  dull  green,  to  contrast  with 
her  once-gold  hair.  But  it  was  cut  from  the  bust  down 
almost  to  her  waist  in  the  back  and  the  display  of  nudity 
was  disgusting  and  repellant,  particularly  so  because  Bernie 
had  lost  her  girlhood  plumpness.  Her  bones  poked  through 
her  skin  and  her  sawtooth  spine  reminded  Nathan  of  some 
pictures  he  had  once  seen  of  starving  Cubans,  taken 
nude  to  show  their  pathetic  emaciation.  The  woman  car 
ried  a  large  green  fan  which  she  now  held  against  her 
flat  breasts  in  a  manner  that  only  called  attention  to  her 
bizarre  costume  and  admitted  that  subconsciously  it  shamed 
her. 

Nathan  was  so  stunned  by  the  change  that  for  a  few 
seconds  he  could  only  stare,  his  tongue  glued  to  the  roof  of 
his  mouth.  Bernice  took  it  for  self -consciousness  and  pro 
vincial  awkwardness,  traits  she  detested.  They  reminded 
her  too  vividly  of  her  humble  origin  and  "what  she  had 
risen  from." 

"Well,  Nathan  ?"  she  demanded  sharply.  "Where  did  you 
come  from?" 

Nathan  fought  for  his  wits. 

"I'm  —  on  my  way  to  the  Orient,"  he  stammered.   "It's  — 


374  THE  FOG 

the  first  time  —  I  was  ever  in  Chicago  —  and  I  thought  I'd 
stop  off  and  look  you  —  up !" 

"The  Orient!  What  in  the  world  are  you  going  to  the 
Orient  for  ?  Aren't  you  afraid  you'll  get  lost  out  there  — 
such  a  long  way  from  Vermont?" 

"Of  course,  if  you  don't  care  about  seeing  me,  Bernie, 
I  won't  impose  on  you,"  returned  Nathan  stiffly. 

Bernice  covered  her  annoyance  with  a  forced  smile. 

"What  did  you  want  to  see  me  about?"  she  demanded. 

Well,  what  did  he  want  to  see  her  about  ?  It  would  be  a 
foolish  reason  —  the  true  one  —  to  explain. 

"I  —  I  —  haven't  seen  you  for  going  on  sixteen  years, 
Bernie.  And  I  thought  —  I  thought  —  well,  I  saw  your 
father  about  a  month  ago." 

"Yes?  How  is  he?"  Bernice  asked  it  perfunctorily,  as 
she  might  have  asked  after  sundry  unfortunates  in  dev 
astated  Belgium. 

"He's  —  well,"  gulped  Nathan.  He  looked  dov/n  at  his 
hands,  raised  his  eyes  to  Bernie's,  smiled  foolishly,  dropped 
them  again  in  embarrassment. 

Bernice  made  no  comment  on  her  father  being  well.  And 
Nathan  saw  how  life  had  hardened  her.  The  woman  was 
adamant.  Her  eyes,  as  she  watched  the  man's  embarrass 
ment,  seemed  to  declare,  "Oh,  what  a  hick  you  are!  Oh, 
what  a  hick!" 

"Well?"  she  suggested  irritably. 

"I  won't  take  any  of  your  time  to-night,  Bernie.  But  I 
would  like  to  talk  over  old  times  with  you  before  I  go  — 
on!" 

"I'm  having  a  few  friends  in  to-night,  so  I  can't  see  you. 
But  if  you'll  come  to-morrow  night,  I'll  try  and  give  you  a 
few  minutes.  How's  your  wife?  Is  she  with  you?" 

"I  have  no  wife.    She  —  died." 

"What  business  are  you  in  now?" 

"Until  lately  I've  been  on  the  road  for  the  Thornes.  They 
took  me  off  and  are  sending  me  to  Vladivostok  on  special 
business." 

"How's  your  father  and  mother  ?" 

Nathan  looked  up  in  surprise. 

"Didn't  you  hear?    About  father's  going  away  and  all?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Seems  to  me  I  did.  He  stole  a  lot  of  money 
and  left  for  parts  unknown,  didn't  he?" 


FIRST  LIGHT  375 

"Yes,"  said  Nat  in  a  whisper.  His  thoughts  turned  to 
a  little  packet  of  love  notes  in  his  pocket.  Could  it  be 
possible  this  hardened  woman  and  himself  had  ever  loved  ? — 
That  she  was  the  little  girl  by  the  side  of  the  stream  that 
picnic  day  —  that  together  they  had  crouched  beneath  his 
coat  from  a  shower  and  she  had  kissed  him. 

"Well,  come  back  to-morrow  night,"  ordered  Bernice. 
"I've  got  to  get  back  to  my  guests." 

"Your  husband "  began  Nathan. 

Bernie  started. 

"I  have  no  husband,"  she  snapped  angrily.  "I  divorced 
him  three  years  ago." 

"Oh!"  said  Nathan  quickly. 


IV 

He  went  back  the  next  night. 

Bernice  received  him  in  a  pale-blue  smock,  her  hair 
twisted  up  in  slovenly  fashion  at  the  back  of  her  neck,  a 
black  band  about  her  head.  The  smock  looked  greasy. 
Bernie  was  smoking  a  cigarette  as  she  admitted  him  herself. 

"It's  Hashi's  night  out,"  she  explained.  "We'll  be  alone 
and  can  talk.  Come  in !"  And  she  led  him  into  a  spacious 
studio  room  behind,  where  the  evening  before  the  music  had 
been  playing.  Nathan  was  clothed  again  in  his  Tuxedo. 
Bernie  surveyed  him  and  smiled  quietly,  aggravatingly. 

She  shoved  a  chair  across  for  him  and  reclined  on  a  chaise- 
longue.  She  did  not  offer  to  apologize  for  not  including 
him  among  her  guests  of  the  prior  night,  although  Nathan 
soon  learned  why  she  had  not  done  so,  and  not  because  the 
woman  was  ashamed  of  her  guests,  either. 

"Now,"  declared  Bernie,  "tell  me  all  about  that  damned 
hick  town  of  Paris!" 

Nathan  honestly  tried  to  do  so.    It  was  sketchy. 

"But  when  did  your  wife  die?"  the  woman  demanded. 

"May  I  smoke?"  the  man  asked. 

"Smoke?  Of  course  you  can  smoke!  Don't  be  such  a 
disgusting  rube.  I'm  smoking,  am  I  not  ?" 

He  lit  a  cigar. 

"I  had  some  trouble  with  my  wife,  Bernie.  She  was 
untrue  to  me  while  I  was  away  on  the  road.  I  came  back 


376  THE  FOG 

one  night  and  caught  her  in  another  man's  arms.  She  left 
Paris  next  day.  You  read  about  the  Russellville  explosion 
last  week?  She  was  either  blown  to  atoms  or  burned  to 
death  —  in  it!" 

For  a  moment  Bernie  forgot  her  pose  and  looked  frankly 
incredulous.  Then  she  tapped  her  cigarette  and  sniffed. 

"I  don't  know  that  I  blame  her,  Nat.  You  always  were 
rather  impossible  from  a  woman's  standpoint,  you  know." 

Nathan  let  it  pass. 

"I've  brought  you  something,  Bernie,  that  you  might 
like  to  keep,"  he  said.  And  upon  the  table  at  her  elbow 
he  laid  the  little  packet  of  childhood  love  letters. 

"For  God's  sake,  what're  those?" 

"The  letters  we  wrote,  Bernie,  wnile  we  were  boy-and- 
girl  sweethearts  in  the  graded  school  together." 

Bernie  dropped  her  cigarette.  She  had  a  bad  time  re 
covering  it  and  the  fire  burned  a  small  hole  in  the  smock 
before  she  had  done  so.  She  swore. 

"But  what  the  devil  do  you  suppose  I  want  of  them 
now  ?" 

"I  don't  know,  Bernie.  I  thought  perhaps  they  might 
mean  something  to  you  —  little  relics  from  the  past,  as  I've 
always  regarded  them." 

"You  always  were  a  sickly,  sentimental  fool,  Nat.  As 
for  the  past,  the  less  we  discuss  it  or  think  about  it,  the 
better  I'll  be  pleased.  I've  had  trouble  enough  weaning 
myself  'from  the  past.'  The  present  a.id  future  gives  me 
bother  enough,  God  knows.  As  for  Paris,  I  hate  it  as  I 
hate  copperheads  in  a  mangrove  swamp.  I'm  done  with  it 
forever  and  never  want  to  be  dragged  back  into  it  again  — 
not  even  to  be  buried." 

"It's  your  old  home  town,  Bernie.  You  can't  get  back 
of  that." 

"I  don't  want  any  'old  home  town.'  I've  risen  above  it. 
I  was  simply  unlucky  enough  to  be  born  in  the  little  tank- 
burg,  and  that's  plenty.  And  as  soon  as  possible  I  shook 
clear  from  it  and  all  it  stood  for!  I  got  over  being  a  hick 
quite  a  while  ago,  Nathan.  And  I  hate  everything  that 
reminds  me  of  it  as  the  devil  hates  holy  water.  I  don't 
want  to  have  to  think  of  the  disgusting  depths  I've  come 
up  from." 

"I'm  sorry,  Bernie." 


FIRST  LIGHT  377 

"You're  not  half  so  sorry  as  I  am!  Paris  nearly  did  for 
me.  Father  and  mother  —  especially  mother !  —  ugh !" 

"What  about  your  mother?  You  thought  she  was  pretty 
classy  once " 

"Nathan  Forge !  Don't  say  'classy'  or  I'll  scream.  More 
provincialism!  'Classy'  was  one  of  mother's  favorite 
words.  The  other  was  'blood.'  Blood!  And  for  all  her 
grand  airs,  she  was  cheap  as  dirt!  But  how  could  I  know 
it  until  I  got  out  in  the  world  and  had  to  suffer  for  it? 
And  God,  what  a  Golgotha  it's  been !  When  I  first  married 
Wallace  and  was  taken  into  his  family,  life  was  one  long 
nightmare  of  'break'  after  'break'  before  his  people.  They 
were  Real  Blood.  And  they  looked  down  on  me  —  right 
eously  —  from  the  day  he  brought  me  home  until  the  day  I 
divorced  him.  I've  had  enough  of  vulgarians  and  low 
brows.  I'll  have  you  know  I'm  a  lady!"  And  in  proof  that 
she  was  a  lady,  Bernice  lit  another  cigarette  and  inhaled 
the  smoke. 

"I  apologize,  Bernice,"  the  man  offered. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  apologize.  Don't  depreciate  yourself. 
That's  'hick'  too!  And  don't  sit  sprawled  out  so,  as  though 
you  didn't  know  what  to  do  with  your  hands  and  your  feet. 
Paris  is  stamped  all  over  you,  from  the  cravat  in  your 
collar  to  the  cut  of  your  shoes.  And  yet  Ted  Thorne  is  send 
ing  you  to  the  Orient  to  represent  him!  Oh,  well,  after 
all,  he's  'hick'  too.  Probably  doesn't  know  any  better.  It's 
none  of  my  business!" 

Nathan's  face  burned.  She  was  the  same  old  Bernie. 
He  might  have  known.  He  tried  to  appear  at  ease  —  al 
though  nothing  the  woman  could  have  done  would  have  made 
him  more  self-conscious  —  and  he  smoked  for  a  moment  in 
perturbed  silence.  She  broke  that  silence  by  exclaiming 
angrily : 

"And  I  wish,  as  a  favor  to  me,  that  you'd  stop  eating 
that  cigar!  And  I'll  bet  it  cost  five  cents  and  came  from 
Tom  Edwards'  cigar  store  next  to  the  newspaper  office " 

"It  cost  twenty  cents,"  defended  Nat,  with  foolish  ire. 

"I'm  not  going  by  the  cost.  I'm  going  by  the  smell! 
Just  goes  to  show  how  much  bringing  up  you've  had.  If 
you  didn't  come  from  a  small  town,  you'd  know  more  than 
to  drag  out  a  heavy,  offensive  cigar  in  front  of  a  lady ;  you'd 
smoke  a  delicate,  gentlemanly  cigarette." 


378  THE  FOG 

"I  don't  smoke  cigarettes,"  the  other  replied  dully. 

"Well,  you  would  if  you  weren't  a  rube.  Thank  God 
I  didn't  introduce  you  to  those  people  I  had  in  here  last 
evening!  I  suppose  you'd  have  pulled  out  one  of  those 
sickening  cabbages  and  lighted  up  right  in  my  drawing- 
room." 

Unconsciously  Nat's  eyes  swept  the  apartment.  It  didn't 
look  like  a  drawing-room. 

Bernie's  tone  suddenly  softened.  Perhaps  it  was  the 
sudden  misery  and  pain  of  self-consciousness  in  the  man's 
eyes.  She  leaned  over  with  her  elbows  on  her  knees  and 
the  cigarette  fumes  bathing  her  colorless  face. 

"Natie,  tell  me  something.  Hasn't  anybody  ever  broken 
the  news  to  you  what  an  awful  hick  you  are  —  and  have 
always  been?" 

"N-N-No !"  choked  the  young  man. 

The  woman  regarded  him  gravely  for  a  quarter-moment. 
Then  as  though  to  herself  she  remarked: 

"Honestly,  I  almost  think  it's  my  Christian  duty,  as  a 
woman  and  a  one-time  friend  of  yours,  to  hold  up  a  mirror 
in  front  of  you  and  let  you  look  at  yourself  properly." 

Nathan  arose,  walked  to  the  window  and  threw  out  the 
offensive  cigar. 

"What  did  you  do  then?"  cried  Bernie  hysterically. 

"Threw  out  my  cigar,  of  course.  You  said  you  didn't 
like  it." 

"Yes.  But  where  did  you  throw  it?  Out  of  one  of 
my  windows  —  like  a  Polack  at  a  drink-fest  down  by  the 
railroad  yards  on  a  Sunday  afternoon.  Suppose  there's 
somebody  down  in  the  court  that  happens  to  know  my 
window !  What  will  they  think  of  me,  when  my  window 
opens  and  rains  down  nasty  cigar  butts?  Oh,  Nathan,  in 
God's  name,  where  is  your  bringing  up  ?" 

"I  guess  I  haven't  had  very  —  much,"  the  poor  man 
choked. 

"You  never  said  a  truer  thing  in  your  life!  And  stop 
walking  the  floor !  As  though  we  were  married  and  having 
a  quarrel!  Come  and  sit  down  quietly  and  poised  —  as  a 
gentleman  should  —  and  let  me  show  you  how  very  im 
possible  you  are  to  a  well-bred  lady !" 

Nathan  obediently  returned  to  his  chair. 

"In  the  first  place,  why  did  you  come  up  here  to-night 


FIRST  LIGHT  379 

in  dinner  clothes !  —  just  for  a  social  call  when  you  knew 
I'd  be  in  careless  negligee  myself?" 

"I  didn't  know  it.  Anyhow,  to  wear  a  business  suit " 

"I  shouldn't  have  minded  you  in  a  business  suit!  Just 
goes  to  show  how  little  you  Forges  understand  women ! 
But  we'll  let  the  dinner  clothes  pass.  Oh,  Nathan !  Nathan ! 
Nathan!"  The  last  word  was  almost  a  hysterical  shriek. 

"Now  what  am  I  doing?"  cried  the  thoroughly  unnerved 
fellow. 

"Picking  at  your  thumb  nail!"  cried  Bernie.  From  the 
cold  horror  in  her  voice  one  might  imagine  Nathan  had 
drawn  the  decapitated  head  of  a  child  from  his  clothes  and 
juggled  it  to  amuse  himself  while  she  talked. 

"Excuse  me,"  he  muttered.  And  he  dropped  his  hands 
in  his  lap  and  looked  the  picture  of  misery.  What  could 
he  do  but  sit  quietly  like  a  tailor's  dummy  and  take  the 
hot-shot  she  poured  into  him,  broadside?  And  she  poured 
it.  There  was  no  doubt  about  it.  She  poured  it. 

"Look  at  you!"  she  cried  witheringly,  her  neurasthenia 
getting  the  upper  hand.  "Feet  clad  in  rakish  patent  leather 
shoes!  Dinner  clothes,  when  you  know  you're  from  a 
little  tank-town  anyhow  and  never  wore  dinner  clothes  there 
in  your  life!  Necktie  drawn  too  tight!  Shirt  bosom  hard 
and  smooth  instead  of  soft  and  pleated !  Collar  two  seasons 
out  of  style!  Hair  parted  on  one  side  instead  of  deftly 
and  sophisticatedly  in  the  middle !  Ears  —  look  at  your  ears ! 
—  especially  your  left  one!  Ugh!  It  gives  me  the  creeps 
to  look  at  it " 

"It's  an  injury,  Bernie.     I  can't  help  that,  can  I?" 

"Certainly  you  can  help  it!  You  got  into  the  fight  that 
made  it  that  way,  didn't  you?  And  if  I  remember  aright, 
it  was  over  some  of  your  asinine  poetry!  But  aside  from 
getting  into  the  fight  in  the  first  place,  surely  you  could 
have  submitted  to  a  surgical  operation  and  had  it  removed 
and  put  on  right !  And  your  hands !  Look  at  your  hands ! 
Knotted  and  gnarled  in  the  knuckles " 

"If  you'd  had  to  do  as  much  manual  labor  with  your 
hands  as  I've  had  to  do  with  mine,  your  hands  would  be 
knotted  and  gnarled  in  the  knuckles!" 

"There  you  go!  Hick  again!  Trying  to  defend  your 
self  !  Insulting  a  lady !" 

"But  aren't  you  insulting  me  a  trifle,  Bernie,  by  calling 


380  THE  FOG 

attention  to  the  condition  of  my  hands,  which  I  can't  help  ?" 

"No!"  Bernie's  hysteria  was  growing  a  trifle  wilder. 
"If  a  man  is  a  perfect  gentleman  —  and  perfectly  bred  — 
never  mind  what  a  lady  says  to  him,  he  concedes  her  the 
privilege  of  insulting  him  as  her  right  —  because  she  is  a 
lady!  But  what  can  you  know  about  that,  of  course  — 
coming  from  Paris!" 

"I  don't  think  a  perfect  lady  would  be  cruel  enough  to 
remind  a  fellow  of  things  about  his  appearance  he  can't 
help." 

"What  do  you  know  about  perfect  ladies?  Where  have 
you  met  any  perfect  ladies?  Who  are  you,  that  you  pre 
sume  to  sit  there  and  question  my  knowledge  of  etiquette 
and  what's  right  and  polite?" 

Nathan  gave  a  tired  laugh.  He  drew  a  long  breath, — 
that  sigh  of  infinite  patience  when  called  upon  to  hold  his 
temper  and  indulge  irascible,  inconsistent,  spoiled  woman 
hood. 

"It's  true  I  haven't  had  many  social  advantages,  Bernie," 
he  conceded.  "But  that's  never  been  because  I  didn't  hanker 
for  them " 

"There  you  go!  Hanker!  That's  a  nice  word  to  use 
before  a  lady.  Hanker !  I  can  see  old  man  Fodder  using 
it,  while  he  spits  foully  on  the  floor  and  wipes  his  dirty 
whiskers  with  the  back  of  his  hand.  Hanker!  Nathan, 
you'll  leave  me  a  nervous  wreck!" 

"What  should  I  say?" 

"Hunger  is  bad  enough.  Because  you  'never  desired 
them'  would  be  better  and  more  refined." 

"Well,  then,  it's  never  been  because  I've  never  desired 
them.  But  what  can  a  fellow  do  when  his  father " 

"That's  right !  Blame  your  father !  Blame  your  mother, 
blame  your  sister,  blame  your  town,  blame  every  one  and 
everything  but  yourself !  In  a  moment  you'll  be  blaming 
me!  Do  you  remember  the  day  after  the  Sunday-school 
picnic  when  your  father  flogged  you  for  going  off  alone 
with  me  in  the  woods?  Do  you  remember  what  I  told  you 
to  do?" 

"Yes!" 

"What?" 

"Get  a  gun  and  shoot  him !" 

"Precisely!     Why  didn't  you?     Don't  you  suppose  that 


FIRST  LIGHT  381 

if  you'd  found  a  shotgun  and  peppered  his  hide  with  holes, 
the  big,  hypocritical,  child-mauling  bully  wouldn't  have  had 
a  new  respect  for  you  and  left  you  alone?" 

"But  suppose  I'd  killed  him?" 

"Well,  suppose  you  had?  Wouldn't  it  have  been  what 
he  deserved?" 

"But,  Bernie!  Be  reasonable!  You're  not  advising  a 
boy  to  get  a  gun  and  commit  murder?  Where  would  I 
have  ended  ?  In  the  electric  chair  or  on  the  gallows." 

"They  don't  hang  children!" 

"But  do  you  think  it  would  be  pleasant  to  go  through 
the  rest  of  life  with  the  realization  that  I'd  shot  my  own 
father  ?" 

"If  you  were  justified  —  as  you  were !  —  there  would  have 
been  no  remorse.  Besides,  if  you  had  been  hounded  by 
remorse,  it  just  goes  to  show  you've  got  a  clinging,  messy, 
sentimental  mind!" 

Nathan  had  a  feeling  that  he  was  talking  to  some  one  who 
was  not  quite  rational.  Still,  he  was  accustomed  to  dealing 
with  irrational  people  —  especially,  The  Sex. 

"I  preferred  not  to  do  it,"  he  returned  dully. 

"Just  so !  And  your  father  walked  all  over  you,  and  took 
your  earnings,  and  imposed  on  you,  and  ground  you  down 
so  that  at  twenty-one  you  flew  into  the  arms  of  that  little 
Richards  slut.  And  now  you  come  yowling  around  me  for 
sympathy " 

"I  haven't  —  I'm  not  —  'yowling  around  you  for  sym 
pathy/  " 

"You  needn't  think  I  haven't  any  brains!  You  needn't 
add  that  to  your  boorish  insults!  You  came  here  to-night, 
with  your  cheap  peasant  wife  dead  and  those  silly  love 
notes,  thinking  to  stir  up  something  of  our  kid  romance  — 
ask  me  to  marry  you,  perhaps.  As  if  I  would  marry  you  — 
you!  Oh,  my  God,  what  an  insult!  I  could  call  the  police 
and  have  you  ejected  for  it,  right  this  minute!" 

"Oh,  Bernie,  please  be  reasonable!  I  haven't  asked  you 
to  marry  me !  I " 

"You  don't  need  to  add  falsehood  to  it  all.  If  I'd  marry 
you  to-morrow,  you'd  feel  highly  complimented,  because 
there's  nothing  in  Paris  to  equal  me.  Isn't  that  so?" 

Nathan  hesitated  to  say  "No,"  and  felt  that  "Yes"  was 
falsehood. 


382  THE  FOG 

"Answer  me !" 

"I  hardly  know,  Bernie.    I " 

But  Bernie  was  obsessed  with  her  own  assumption. 

"Well,  I'll  have  you  know  I'm  done  with  men,  do  you 
understand?  There's  never  been  one  yet  that  shot  straight 
with  me!  Look  in  my  eyes,  Nathan  Forge!  Do  you  see 
that  stabbed  look  there?" 

Nathan  looked  in  her  eyes.  He  saw  no  stabbed  look. 
But  he  did  see  the  wild  forked  light  and  iris  dilations  of 
a  rampant  neurasthenic.  And  moreover,  if  no  males  had 
ever  shot  straight  with  Bernie,  Nathan  had  a  quiet  hunch 
he  knew  the  reason.  But  Bernie,  of  course,  would  have 
exploded  in  one  grand  cataclysm  of  atomic  energy  if  he  had 
not  agreed  that  he  did  see  a  stabbed  look  in  her  eyes. 

"Men  have  put  that  stabbed  look  there,  Nathan  Forge! 
Your  sex!  Even  you  have  had  your  part  in  doing  it!" 

"Me?"  cried  the  amazed  young  man. 

"You !  You,  you,  you !  That  day  off  in  the  woods — 
remember  it?  You  bet  you  remember  it!  You  tempted 
me  to  degrade  my  girlish  modesty!  You  taught  me  what 
fascination  a  woman's  body  has  upon " 

"Bernice!     I " 

"Stop!  Not  a  word!  I  guess  I  know!  I've  suffered 
enough  for  it!  You  and  your  sex  are  rotten!  Rotten! 
Rotten !  And  I'm  done  with  it !  And  yet  here  you  come, 
sniveling  around  in  your  small-town  boorishness  and  dinner 
clothes,  bringing  me  old  love  letters,  thinking  I'd  marry 
you !  And  what  have  you  done  that  I  should  marry  you  ? 
What  are  you  in  the  world,  anyway  —  among  real  men,  I 
mean  ?  What  goals  have  you  won  ?  What  have  you  to  offer 
a  woman ?" 


"I  hope  I've  got  a  reasonable  amount  of  decency " 

The  effect  on  Bernice  was  a  shriek. 

"Decency!  Oh,  my  God,  what  conceit!  You're  worse 
than  some  of  those  Los  Angeles  picture  actors  I  met  last 
summer !  'A  reasonable  amount  of  decency !'  You  !  Who 
lived  for  six  years  in  foul  propinquity  with  a  woman  you 
didn't  love " 

"I  believed  that  sticking  by  my  wife  —  when  I'd  given 
her  a  child  —  was  the  right  and  proper  thing  to  do.  Men 
usually  are  sports  that  way." 

"More  conceit !     So  you're  a  sport,  are  you  —  along  with 


FIRST  LIGHT  383 

being  eligible  to  an  especial  halo  for  decency?  As  if  any 
thing  could  offset  sleeping  —  even  for  one  night !  —  with  a 
woman  who  was  not  your  ideal  and  your  princess!  It  just 
goes  to  show  where  your  self-respect  is!  You  haven't  any! 
You  never  had  any  self-respect!  If  you'd  had  any  self- 
respect  you  never  would  have  permitted  your  father  to 
bamboozle  you  as  he  did!  Oh,  what  a  dirty  little  cad  you 
are!  And  you  talk  of  decency!" 

Nathan  was  beginning  to  lose  his  sense  of  proportion; 
he  was  getting  muddled  trying  to  follow  Bernie's  logic. 

"All  I've  had  to  go  by  is  experience,  what  I've  been 
taught,  what  I've  contacted,"  he  blurted  out.  "If  I  did 
wrong  it  was  because  I  didn't  know  any  better !" 

"And  here  I  am,  trying  to  show  you  wherein  you're 
wrong,  like  a  sincere  friend,  or  a  woman  who  loves  you  — 
and  you  sit  there  in  all  your  small-town  boorishness  and 
bigotry  and  conceit  and  try  to  defend  yourself!  Faugh!" 

Nathan,  ever  supersensitive,  began  to  wonder  how  far 
Bernie  was  right  and  how  far  wrong.  And  the  woman's 
continued  tirade  did  nothing  to  enlighten  him: 

"Hasn't  it  dawned  on  you,"  she  cried,  her  voice  strained 
with  hysteria,  "why  you've  never  gotten  on  in  the  world  — 
why  at  twenty-seven  you're  no  further  along  than  you 
were  at  seventeen  ?  I'll  tell  you !  It's  because  you've  never 
been  able  to  see  yourself  as  others  see  you !  You're  a  boob ! 
A  hick!  A  sentimental  little  small -town  vulgarian.  And  I 
bet  at  table  you  eat  with  your  knife  and  blow  your  coffee 
in  a  saucer!  No  wonder  you  haven't  got  ahead.  Hasn't 
there  ever  been  a  time  when  opportunity  opened  for  you 
and  then  —  when  people  you  met  saw  you  —  that  oppor 
tunity  mysteriously  closed  ?  Answer  me !  Hasn't  there  ?" 

At  once  into  poor  Nathan's  distraught  brain  came  the 
experience  of  the  New  York  knitting-mills  management. 
His  acknowledgment  showed  plainly  on  his  bewildered  face. 

"Ah!  I  thought  so!"  cried  Bernie  exultantly.  "And 
why  did  you  lose  that  opportunity?  Because  you  were  a 
hick!  Because  you  didn't  know  how  to  act!  Because  you 
probably  deported  yourself  before  fine-grained,  well-bred 
people  the  way  you've  been  deporting  yourself  in  my  house 
to-night  —  like  a  savage  who  pads  around  naked  before  his 
family  and  tears  his  food  apart  with  his  fingers!  That's 
why  you've  never  gotten  ahead  and  you  never  will !  You're 


384  THE  FOG 

small-town,  I  say!  You're  rube  and  hick!  A  vulgarian! 
And  a  rotter  beside !" 

Nathan  stared  blankly  ahead  of  him.  Was  he?  He 
almost  began  to  think  that  he  was. 

Bernie  drew  a  long  jagged  sigh  for  breath,  stared  at 
him  in  self-satisfaction,  then  arose  abruptly  and  crossed 
the  room  to  the  steam  radiator.  Bending  down,  she  rattled 
the  valve  to  turn  it  off.  She  came  back.  Nathan  was  still 
in  his  daze.  Hands  on  hips,  a  slurring  sneer  on  her  features, 
Bernie  paused  before  him  contemptuously. 

"Look  at  you!"  she  snapped.  "Just  as  I  say!  Sit  there 
and  let  a  woman  turn  off  a  steam  radiator  —  never  make  a 
single  move,  or  offer  to  do  it  for  her!" 

Again  Nathan  was  taken  aback. 

"You  didn't  ask  me,"  he  defended  thickly. 

"Ask  you!  Ask  you!  And  has  a  woman  to  ask  a  man 
every  time  she  wants  a  thing  done?  I  can  see  your  father 
sticking  out  all  over  you!  All  her  life  your  mother  had 
to  ask  him  to  get  things  done.  A  gentleman  would  anticipate 
all  a  woman's  little  whims  and  desires  and  please  her  before 
she  had  to  ask  for  them  !  And  you !  —  you  —  want  to  marry 
me!" 

Nathan  was  sick  and  getting  sicker.  More  than  sick,  he 
felt  bruised  and  bleeding,  somehow.  Bernice  had  jabbed 
the  lance  of  her  spleen  into  his  most  sensitive  feelings  of 
self -consciousness  and  handicap. 

Were  all  women  like  this,  even  the  best  of  them? 

Again  he  had  the  feeling  of  holding  out  his  hands  to 
a  woman  and  having  them  slapped.  Slapped?  His  hands? 
Bernie  was  cuffing  his  hands,  his  mouth,  his  ears,  belabor 
ing  him  with  blows  from  which  he  had  no  defense,  which 
he  could  not  return  because  she  was  woman,  The  Sex. 

"I  guess  I  better  go,  Bernie,"  he  whispered  huskily  after 
a  time. 

"That's  right,  you  piker!  Run!  Just  when  you  hear 
the  naked  truth  about  yourself,  run!  It's  like  you!  It's 
just  like  every  man.  It's  especially  like  a  Forge,  and  your 
father!  I  understand  he  didn't  stop  running  until  he  got 
out  of  the  country  with  a  valise  of  other  people's  money! 
And  you  ask  me  to  marry  you  —  his  son !" 

"Bernie,  I  haven't  asked  you  to  marry  me!  At  least  if 
I  did,  I  wasn't  conscious  of  it!" 


FIRST  LIGHT  385 

"Then  why  are  you  here  to  see  me?" 

"To  —  to  —  talk  over  —  old  times  —  in  Paris !" 

"Fiddlesticks!  Why  should  I  want  to  talk  over  old 
times  in  Paris,  when  I  despise  and  detest  the  place  —  and  all 
it  stands  for?" 

"I  didn't  know  you  despised  and  detested  the  place.  How 
could  I?  The  trouble  with  you  seems  to  be,  Bernie,  you 
want  a  man  to  anticipate  what's  in  your  mind,  or  think  of 
what  you're  thinking  about,  before  you  even  begin  to  think 
about  it  yourself " 

"Well,  a  brainy  man  would!  Not  being  able  to  do  it  is 
another  phase  of  your  provincialism  —  the  deficiency  and 
mediocrity  that's  held  you  back  so  that  right  now,  sitting 
in  that  chair,  you're  not  a  millionaire,  a  great  success  in 
life,  a  big-leaguer  socially " 

"I  simply  happened  to  be  'way  off  here,  passing  through 
Chicago " 

"  'Way  off  here !  A  long,  long  way  from  home,  aren't 
you?  A  long,  long  way  from  Vermont  and  the  General 
Store  and  the  Village  School  and  Uncle  Josh  Weatherbee's 
Farm?  Faugh!  Yes,  I  think  you'd  better  go!  And  I'm 
going  to  bed  —  and  call  a  doctor.  And  if  I'm  ill  as  a  result 
of  this,  your  firm  will  get  my  doctor's  bill,  and  don't  you 
forget  it !" 


Nathan  walked  back  to  The  Morrison.  It  was  still  early 
evening.  The  wind  off  the  lake  was  delightfully  welcome. 
As  he  walked  he  carried  his  hat  in  his  hand  and  let  that 
night  wind  cool  his  hot  forehead. 

He  had  been  shocked,  shocked  terribly.  He  felt  as  he  had 
felt  one  night  back  over  the  years  when  he  had  asked  his 
mother  about  the  origin  of  infants  and  that  mother  had 
given  him  a  terrifying  delineation  of  the  everlasting  fires 
of  hell  instead.  The  rapier  point  of  Bernie's  arraignment 
had  cut  through  the  armor  of  his  philosophy,  through  his 
very  vitals  and  almost  punctured  the  sac  of  self-faith  which 
wrapped  his  pulsing  young  soul. 

He  tried  to  analyze  Bernie.  She  was  irrational,  a 
monomaniac,  a  neurotic,  the  full  and  final  flower  of  her 
mother's  infirmities.  There  were  ways  in  which  Bernie  was 


386  THE  FOG 

very  like  his  own  mother.  Yet  Bernie  had  never  been 
weighed  down  and  had  her  individuality  twisted  and  per 
verted  by  the  narrowness  and  mediocrity  his  mother  had 
encountered.  Bernie  had  been  "out  in  the  world."  She 
had  been  academically  educated.  She  had  met  the  world's 
diverse  types  and  temperaments.  What,  then,  was  wrong 
with  Bernie? 

Frankly,  he  gave  it  up.  It  was  beyond  him.  If  he  could 
have  analyzed  Bernie  he  felt  he  could  have  analyzed  him 
self.  He  decided  that  she  was  simply  a  small-town  girl 
even  as  he  was  a  small-town  boy,  only  he  was  trying  to 
put  all  his  handicaps,  vicissitudes  and  experiences  to  a  con 
structive  purpose,  so  far  as  he  had  the  light,  and  Bernie 
was  not  and  never  had  tried.  There  he  had  to  let  the 
matter  rest,  never  realizing  how  near  the  truth  he  had 
stumbled. 

Yet  in  all  this  hectic  analysis  business,  in  all  this  vicious 
contact  with  parental  mediocrity,  in  all  his  heart-breaking 
experience  with  The  Sex  as  he  had  known  The  Sex  thus 
far,  the  boy  had  never  once  grasped  an  explanation  as  simple 
and  obvious  and  plain  as  sunlight  —  and  as  common  as  mud. 

He  had  lived  for  twenty-seven  years  among  people  of 
half -developed  or  deficient  mentality.  He  had  been  sur 
feited  with  persons  "who  had  no  brains." 

Looking  upon  the  men  and  women  he  had  known,  espe 
cially  the  women,  he  had  observed  that  they  possessed 
bodies,  limbs,  heads,  faces.  They  moved  about,  they  talked, 
they  ate,  they  slept.  To  all  outward  intents  and  purposes, 
excepting  perhaps  for  a  certain  vacancy  across  the  eyes, 
they  were  no  different  than  the  most  profound  philosophers 
who  had  ever  walked  the  earth.  And  because  they  possessed 
bodies,  limbs,  heads,  faces,  because  they  moved  about  at 
their  daily  activities,  talked,  ate,  slept,  he  had  subcon 
sciously  expected  them  to  know  all,  see  all,  be  all,  and  impart 
to  him  a  birthright  heritage  of  mental  and  spiritual  nutri 
tion  for  which  his  growing  soul  and  spirit  hungered.  The 
nearest  he  had  ever  approximated  this  was  when  he  said 
of  his  mother,  "She  can't  help  it ;  she's  made  that  way." 
It  was  not  that  his  mother  was  "made  that  way"  so  much 
as  it  was  that  she  had  not  been  made  anything  better  or 
finer  or  greater.  And  the  same  general  hypothesis  applied 
pretty  well  to  all  those  who  had  surrounded  him. 


FIRST  LIGHT  387 

Mediocrity  was  only  mental  limitation.  It  was  not  default 
of  intelligence,  as  he  had  always  assumed.  It  was  boundary. 
Beyond  a  certain  point,  God  seemed  to  have  ordained  that 
certain  mortals  should  not  pass. 

Nathan  had  yet  to  learn  that  in  the  bodies  of  men  and 
women,  individually  and  severally,  never  collectively  and 
rarely  racially,  and  regardless  of  where  they  may  discover 
themselves  at  birth,  exist  or  do  not  exist  chromosomes  — 
vital,  literal  cells  —  of  character,  high  quality,  divine  dis 
satisfaction,  goal -winning  discontent,  beauty  hunger,  atone 
ment  with  Perfection,  which  is  God.  It  seems  as  though  God 
had  picked  out  certain  persons  throughout  the  human  race, 
endowed  them  with  the  divine  Order  of  Merit,  favored  them 
with  the  Cosmic  Urge  to  approach  Idealism.  Those  chromo 
somes  might  lie  dormant  through  generations,  to  appear  sud 
denly  virulent  as  they  had  appeared  in  my  friend.  And  this 
being  a  world  in  which  like  seeks  like,  Nathan  was  groping 
for  fellowship  with  other  immortals  in  that  divine  Legion 
of  Honor  and  thus  far  had  not  found  them  and  was  miser 
able  until  at  times  he  almost  doubted  himself. 

People  of  no  brains !  Mediocrity!  Small-townism !  Self- 
satisfaction!  Sordidness!  Narrowness!  Bigotry!  Stag 
nation  !  Dross !  Chaff !  Nature  segregating  her  human 
waste !  Nathan  was  not  yet  sufficiently  enlightened  to  sweep 
them  all  into  the  same  great  basket  and  discard  them  from 
his  scheme  of  things  forever. 

And  this  was  the  thing  that  bothered  most:  He  knew 
instinctively  that  in  certain  portions  of  her  indictment,  per 
haps  in  its  very  fundamentals,  Bernie  had  been  right.  But 
where  to  go  to  overcome  those  deficiencies  she  had  excoriated, 
how  to  lift  himself  above  them,  perfect  himself  —  who  was 
there  to  show  him,  give  him  his  cue,  point  a  way?  He 
had  assumed  his  parents  could  do  it.  They  had  not  done  it. 
He  had  looked  for  Woman  to  do  it,  —  The  Sex.  But  thus 
far  The  Sex  had  not  done  it.  Whence  was  the  light  and 
the  help  coming?  For  divine  discontent  with  mediocrity 
and  sordidness  was  now  rampant  in  his  heart  and  could  never 
be  eradicated.  Fog!  Fog!  Fog! 

Nathan  finally  turned  into  The  Morrison.  He  passed 
through  the  crowded  lobby.  Every  woman  he  saw  raised 
a  feeling  of  repulsion  in  his  breast.  In  his  heart  was  a 
blind  impulse  to  smash  and  crush  even  the  pretty  little  eleva- 


388  THE  FOG 

tor  operator  who  made  a  laughing  remark  about  a  fussy 
old  man  who  wanted  to  alight  on  the  fifth  floor. 

He  reached  the  sanctuary  of  his  own  room  and  locked  him 
self  in.  He  threw  of!  hat  and  coat  and  lighted  a  cigar.  He 
sank  full  length  on  the  bed,  snapping  the  burned  match 
angrily  at  the  footboard. 

He  knew  that  culturally  he  was  a  provincial,  a  small-town 
"rube",  as  Bernie  had  called  it.  He  didn't  want  to  be  told 
those  things.  What  he  wanted  was  to  be  shown  how  to  cor 
rect  his  crudities  and  have  them  nursed  out  of  him,  not 
blasted  out  with  a  torch ;  helped  in  his  great  moments  of 
self-doubt;  he  needed  a  knowing  friend  to  face  him  in  the 
right  direction,  be  patient  with  him  when  he  stumbled,  be 
lieve  in  him,  have  confidence  that  he  could  win,  —  win  with 
him! 

There  was  no  one,  —  yet ! 

Even  his  own  philosophy  as  he  had  spoken  it  to  Ted 
Thorne  almost  failed  him  that  night  in  Chicago.  Bernie  had 
been  too  cruel. 

What  was  he  groping  for  ?  What  was  this  thing  for  which 
he  hungered  so  blindly?  What  was  this  "small-town"  busi 
ness,  fundamentally?  Why  was  there  such  execration  in 
being  a  provincial?  Why  did  it  bother  him  so?  Why  the 
necessity  for  climbing  out  of  it?  When  he  had  "climbed 
out  of  it",  what  then? 

He  thought  of  Paris,  Vermont,  as  he  lay  there  on  the 
bed.  He  thought  of  the  view  of  Main  Street  from  the 
Whitney  House  steps,  —  the  same  scene  which  Madelaine 
Theddon  had  found  so  depressing  two  years  before.  What 
was  the  matter  with  it?  Why  was  it  depressing?  Why 
should  it  stand  for  all  the  things  he  was  trying  to  shake 
from  his  fingers  like  sticky  fly-paper?  Was  it  lack  of  beauty 
in  the  place?  No!  Many  parts  of  the  town  were  beautiful. 
And  hundreds  of  great  cities  were  filled  with  sordid,  de 
pressing  neighborhoods  and  quarters.  It  wasn't  a  question 
of  size.  It  wasn't  a  question  of  beauty.  What  then  ? 

"Mediocrity,  provincialism,  small-townism,"  he  reasoned 
to  himself,  when  philosophy  was  beginning  to  win  out  and 
his  hurt  brain  and  consciousness  could  function  again.  "It 
must  be  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  embodiment  of  stand 
ing  still !  Backwaters  of  life,  peopled  by  those  who  fear 
the  great,  rugged  currents,  living  to  a  standard  and  never 


FIRST  LIGHT  389 

daring  or  attempting  to  raise  that  standard  —  seeing  no  rea 
son  why  they  should !  Lethargy  —  abiosis  —  existing  from 
week  to  week,  month  to  month,  year  to  year  in  the  same 
fashion  and  speed  and  gait  as  the  week,  the  month,  the  year 
before.  It's  the  hideousness  of  standing  all  one's  life  in 
one  set  of  tracks  when  something  inside  shrieks  to  go  on, 
to  move,  to  improve,  to  be  bigger,  better,  broader  next 
year  than  last." 

He  arose  and  walked  to  his  room.  He  wished  he  had  old 
Caleb  to  talk  it  with. 

"That  must  be  what's  been  the  matter  with  me,"  he  ar 
gued  to  himself,  as  the  hours  slipped  on  toward  midnight. 
"I  wanted  something  better  at  home  and  father  and  mother 
couldn't  grasp  it.  I  tried  to  get  it  in  the  business  and  in  so 
far  as  I  got  it  the  business  prospered  and  there  was  money 
and  we  approached  some  degree  of  happiness.  I  wanted  to 
go  on  and  up  with  Milly  and  she  couldn't  appreciate  it.  And 
I've  subconsciously  hated  everything  and  everyone  about 
me  because  they  gave  me  no  approval  or  supplied  no  incen 
tive  or  showed  understanding  of  that  urge  to  create,  improve, 
Go  Up.  That  hatred  made  for  intoleration  and  I  kept  it 
repressed  inside  me.  I'm  not  a  hick!  I  won't  admit  it. 
Nobody  can  be  a  hick  so  long  as  they've  got  the  urge  to  go 
on  up,  to  rise  to  better  things,  better  ways  of  living,  better 
ways  of  understanding  one's  fellows,  better  ways  of  ex 
pressing  the  fine  things  of  life  in  Art  ideas,  —  up,  up  — 
toward  God  waiting  at  the  Top.  Perfection  at  last.  The 
provincials  are  only  those  who  hide  in  the  backwaters,  con 
tent  to  stay-  in  the  backwaters,  to  remain  in  their  tracks,  to  be 
satisfied  with  little,  inconsequential  things,  to  see  no  reason 
for  changing  their  standards.  And  I'm  not !" 

Torn  and  mangled  of  spirit  as  he  was  that  night,  emaciated 
with  the  great  hunger  of  brain  and  heart  for  a  birthright 
of  sane,  constructive,  inspiring,  encouraging,  understanding 
parenthood  which  had  been  denied  him,  Nathan  fought  out 
his  problem,  step  by  step,  for  himself,  and  in  the  recesses 
of  his  own  soul  looked  for  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  light. 

He  would  keep  moving.  To  move  meant  enlightenment. 
It  must  mean  enlightenment.  He  would  hew  at  his  niche 
and  accomplish  his  task  though  a  thousand  millstones  and 
anvils  were  loaded  upon  him.  Somewhere  were  High  Hill 
tops,  peopled  with  soft  voices  and  calm  eyes,  manifesta- 


390  THE  FOG 

tions  of  elegant  living  because  such  was  social  efficiency  — 
still  another  phase  of  omnipotent  perfection  toward  which 
he  groped  blindly  —  Art  waves  in  which  the  soul  of  him 
might  bathe  luxuriantly,  somewhere  were  High  Hill  Tops. 
There  was  no  disgrace  being  born  in  the  valley  so  long  as  he 
had  no  choice  in  the  matter  and  was  consistently  and  sin 
cerely  hunting  the  evasive  pathway  up  to  those  Hill  Tops  — 
up  to  the  Dwelling  Places  of  Light. 

My  friend  had  within  him  the  gift  of  the  Magi  beyond 
rubies,  —  the  great  galvanism  of  Divinity  —  energizing, 
vitalizing,  driving  his  young  Soul  Indomitable  to  cry  from 
far  up  the  heights  "Excelsior!"  —  to  battle  forever  toward 
the  stars.  Yet  he  knew  it  not. 

To  Abaddon  with  cloying,  handicapping,  misunderstand 
ing  parenthood!  With  fretting,  abusive  womanhood  —  with 
coarse  environments  —  with  petty  twopenny  handicaps !  He 
would  go  on,  —  doing  his  duty  as  he  saw  it,  taking  advantage 
of  the  last  iota  of  opportunities  as  they  came,  fighting  as  he 
went,  —  true  to  the  Aryan  that  was  in  him. 

And  after  that  night,  he  set  his  face  to  the  west  and  he 
went  on,  disregarding  what  the  going  cost  him,  little  realiz 
ing  that  he  was  suddenly  carrying  his  High  Aspiration  writ 
ten  large  on  his  fighting  face  for  the  World  and  One  Woman 
to  see! 

VI 

Back  in  her  apartment,  Bernice  picked  up  the  packet  of 
faded  love  notes,  untied  the  string  with  sneering  amusement 
and  selected  a  letter  at  random.  She  read  and  the  sneer 
disappeared. 

She  picked  up  another  and  read  and  the  worldliness  fell 
from  her  face.  She  picked  up  a  third,  a  fourth,  a  fifth. 
She  did  not  read  the  sixth. 

Face  downward  in  the  tapestry  pillows,  she  sobbed  out 
her  heart. 


CHAPTER  XI 
MAN'S  WORLD 


The  Czar  had  been  deposed  in  the  opening  weeks  of 
March.  Sturmer,  Golitzin  and  Protopapvov  had  been  ar 
rested.  The  Imperial  Russian  family  were  under  tragic 
detention  in  Tsarkoe-Selo  Palace.  On  March  15  came  the 
coalition  cabinet  of  the  revolutionists.  As  April  began,  the 
Council  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Delegates  were  declar 
ing  it  necessary  for  them  to  control  the  course  of  the  pro 
visional  government.  Events  were  moving  in  seven-league 
boots  in  the  land  of  the  luckless  Romanoffs.  But  where  they 
were  moving  or  what  would  be  the  state  of  affairs  when  the 
moving  was  ended,  no  one  dared  to  predict. 

Nathan  sailed  from  San  Francisco  on  the  first  day  of 
April.  Queer  emotions  played  through  him  as  the  big  Jap 
anese  liner,  Tenyo  Maru,  turned  its  prow  about,  started  its 
engines,  gathered  speed  away  from  the  line  of  handkerchiefs, 
cheers  and  tears  along  the  dock,  down  the  harbor,  past  the 
Presidio,  followed  by  swarms  of  crying  gulls  out  through 
the  Golden  Gate,  off  into  the  mystic  West  which  strangely 
becomes  the  East  again.  Much  might  happen  before  he  next 
saw  the  clock  on  the  Market  Street  ferry-house  tower. 

As  the  land  dropped  lower  behind  the  ship  and  the  flocks 
of  gulls  thinned  out  arid  the  arms  of  the  Pacific  opened 
wider  and  wider,  a  sense  of  vast  freedom  came  to  Nathan. 
Those  broad  ocean  reaches  stirred  deep  reactions  within 
him.  They  beckoned  him  away  from  petty  things.  Hour 
after  hour  he  walked  the  Tenyo's  decks  or  sank  down  in 
his  steamer  chair  and  dozed  there,  sending  dream-cargoes 
off  across  the  miles.  Every  day  carried  him  farther  from 
the  handicap,  sordidness,  mediocrity,  trial,  pose,  struggle, 
which  had  been  the  sum  and  substance  of  his  life  and  en 
vironment  to  date.  Something  big  and  vital  must  transpire 


392  THE  FOG 

out  in  this  world  whence  he  was  going.  He  would  look  for 
it.  It  was  all  in  the  epilogue  of  Going  On. 

Entering  the  dining  saloon  for  lunch  on  April  6,  he  found 
beside  his  plate  a  copy  of  the  little  daily  news  sheet  filled 
with  items  received  by  wireless. 

America  had  declared  war. 

Tourist  trade  to  the  Orient  had  dropped  to  zero.  Pas 
sengers  aboard  were  people  of  importance,  outward  bound 
on  serious  business.  Nathan  shared  his  cabin  with  an  In 
ternational  Y.  M.  C.  A.  official  going  to  Siberia  to  open 
cantonment  work  among  the  Russian  troops. 

With  his  easy  ability  to  "get  along"  with  those  of  his  own 
sex,  he  had  become  intimate  with  the  Y.  man  before  two 
days  had  passed.  By  the  end  of  the  week  he  knew  most 
of  the  men  on  board  and  had  talked  textiles  to  a  group  of 
South  Americans  in  the  smoking  room  one  night  so  intel 
ligently  that  one  of  them  had  approached  him  next  day  de 
claring  his  government  needed  a  man  of  Nathan's  experience 
and  ability,  and  would  Nathan  consider  a  position  in  Bolivia 
when  his  present  mission  was  over. 

Nathan  laughed,  shrugging  his  shoulders. 

He  could  not  help  feeling  as  he  "held  his  own"  among 
those  of  his  own  sex,  that  they  minded  little  the  talon  aspect 
of  his  gnarled  hands  or  his  mutilated  ear.  That  for  Ber- 
nie !  It  was  what  a  man  was  in  his  head  and  his  heart  which 
counted  most.  He  began  to  get  a  perspective  on  himself. 

Yet  he  hungered.  He  hardly  spoke  to  a  woman  through 
out  the  voyage.  But  this  was  true :  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life  Nathan  had  day  after  day  to  dream,  —  to  do  absolutely 
nothing  but  think. 

He  tried  to  assay  his  mental  equipment  in  those  long,  lazy 
days  of  meditation,  to  determine  what  he  was  best  fitted  to 
do,  how  to  make  up  for  lost  years,  whether  he  should  go 
on  as  a  salesman  and  make  textiles  his  business  after  his 
return  and  now  that  he  was  free,  —  or  specialize  in  some  pro 
fession  or  art.  His  poetry?  He  had  long  ago  seen  enough 
of  life  to  realize  it  would  be  a  dreary  day  before  he  could 
hope  to  secure  a  living  from  poetry.  Well  enough  as  a 
hobby,  perhaps.  But  life  meant  more  than  compilation  of 
romantic  rhymes.  He  felt  it  too  late  now  to  go  to  college. 
But  it  was  never  too  late  to  educate  himself  for  some  pro 
fession  or  art.  Just  what  should  that  education  be  ?  To  what 


MAN'S  WORLD  393 

purpose?  What  did  he  enjoy  doing  best,  aside  from  com 
posing  rhymes?  Of  what  could  he  make  a  success  because 
his  heart  would  be  in  his  work? 

One  night,  as  the  great  liner  swung  down  the  northern 
border  of  tropical  seas,  he  leaned  over  the  railing  and  watched 
the  soft,  warm  stars.  One  star  in  particular  was  very 
luminous  and  close.  A  snatch  of  an  old  poem  came  to 
him 

"Sometimes,  dear  heart,  in  the  quiet  night, 
When  the  stars  hang  soft  and  low, 
I  slip  away  from  the  clash  and  care 
To  the  Hills  of  Long  Ago. 
Across  those  hills  in  the  whisp'ring  dark, 
With  the  night-breeze  sighing  through, 
I  see  those  castles  we'd  planned  to  build 
When  our  dreams  had  all  come  true !" 

The  lines  brought  the  tropic  skies  close.  Nat's  heart  sang 
in  rhythm  with  the  swash  of  the  water  and  beat  of  the  screw. 
Who  was  the  one  with  whom  he  had  built  castles  —  Bernie  ? 
Carol?  Mildred?  Who? 

"Your  face  glows  plain  in  an  evening  star, 
Ere  the  moon  rides  high  and  cold, 
And  memories  tune  with  the  summer  night 
On  a  chord  that's  rare  and  old " 

A  face  in  a  star!  Whose  face?  He  thought  for  a  time 
he  could  almost  discern.  Fancy  led  him  to  invent  a  face 
which  should  approximate  his  ideal.  What  was  his  ideal 
woman's  face?  If  he  were  a  great  painter  and  would  put 
on  canvas  the  features  of  his  Dream  Girl,  what  manner  and 
type  of  face  would  he  paint? 

The  boat  swayed  on  in  the  starlit  dark.  Above  it,  lights 
of  God  looked  down  their  mighty  passwords  over  the  waters. 
Stygian  smoke  furled  from  great  funnels  and  dropped 
a  billowy  screen  across  their  phosphorescent  wake.  A  happy 
laugh  floated  out  a  sharply  defined  door  from  the  ladies 
lounging  room  up  forward. 

A  face  in  a  star !    Whose  face  ? 

Nathan  thought  of  a  woman  he  had  seen  in  Springfield 
one  night  —  the  night  of  the  Harvard-Pennsylvania  boat  race 


394  THE  FOG 

. —  before  he  had  gone  to  his  hotel  to  get  that  awful  wire 
about  little  Mary's  going  away  —  a  girl  sitting  across  a 
snowy-white  table  from  a  man  in  dinner  clothes,  —  a  girl 
raised  just  above  him  —  with  features  he  had  never  quite 
forgotten,  they  were  so  fine  and  tender  and  cameo-rare. 

If  he  were  a  painter,  he  believed  he  would  try  to  sketch 
that  woman's  face  as  something  very  like  his  Dream  Girl. 
He  wondered  who  she  had  been  —  her  name  ?  The  fellow's 
wife  probably.  Strange  how  things  stick  in  the  back  of  a 
man's  mind  at  times. 

A  face  in  a  star,  indeed ! 

Happily,  new  scenes  and  clean,  free  horizons  were  taking 
pressure  from  head  and  brain.  The  world  with  which  he 
had  battled  was  drawing  off  in  increasingly  better  perspec 
tive.  He  was  humbly  thankful. 

He  awoke  one  morning  to  find  the  engine's  heart-throb 
stopped  and  the  vessel  strangely  quiet.  Glancing  out  his 
stateroom  porthole  in  the  hush  of  dawn,  he  beheld  a  moun* 
tain  sky  line  weirdly  close.  They  had  approached  Hawaii 
and  Honolulu  during  the  night.  Dense,  tropical  vapo* 
clouded  the  mauve  mountain  summits.  The  city  was  almost 
hidden  in  foliage.  A  molten  sun  came  up  while  he  was  break 
fasting.  About  ten  o'clock  he  went  ashore. 

The  narrow,  low-roofed  streets  with  queer  souvenir  shops ; 
the  native,  comic-opera  policemen  at  intersections  of  traffic; 
picturesque  brown  men  with  hatbands  and  collars  wreathed 
with  flowers;  quaint  Japanese  women  with  brilliant  sun 
shades,  —  among  them  Nathan  felt  like  a  schoolboy  off  on 
his  first  vacation. 

n 

Many  features  of  that  voyage  supplied  "atmosphere"  which 
Nathan  will  never  forget.  Laughing  forenoons  swashing 
through  shimmering  waves;  schools  of  flying  fish  winging 
low  above  the  whitecaps  like  dragon  flies,  to  flip  from  sight 
as  one  watched  them;  children  playing  on  the  after-deck 
and  a  kiddie-car  always  left  for  peripatetics  to  stumble  over ; 
soft  sea  breezes  wafting  through  velvet-covered  saloons; 
a  wisp  of  smoke  on  the  far  horizon  where  another  steamer 
passed;  the  sun  going  aslant  down  the  sky  and  making  a 
shadow  ship  that  sailed  into  flaming  carmine  with  them; 


MAN'S  WORLD  395 

nights  of  laughter  and  music;  dancing  under  Japanese  lan 
terns;  the  close,  hot  confines  of  narrow  white  stateroom 
passages  faintly  scented  with  bilge, — one  grows  to  love  a 
ship  which  has  carried  one  in  safety  over  thousands  of  watery 
miles. 

And  his  father  had  known  all  this,  three  years  before. 

His  first  sight  of  Japan  came  about  eleven  o'clock  the 
morning  of  the  seventeenth  day  at  sea.  A  hatless  young 
missionary  in  white  duck,  China  bound,  came  around  the 
southern  side  of  the  promenade  deck  with  field-glass  case 
swinging  from  one  shoulder. 

"Japan  ahead!"  he  cried.  "Just  sighted  Fujiyama!" 
Then  Nathan  noted  that  the  deck  where  he  had  been  reading 
was  deserted. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  ship,  up  forward,  passengers 
were  telescoped  against  the  rail.  It  was  some  time  before 
Nathan  discerned  the  great,  weird,  snow-white  cone,  high 
and  vague  in  the  clouds,  guarding  the  portals  of  the  East, 
though  no  shore  was  visible  yet.  But  the  shore  loomed 
quickly  after  that,  though  the  mountain  outline  faded. 

During  lunch  he  glanced  through  the  dining-room  port 
holes  to  see  low,  sandy  coast  slipping  past  on  the  north, 
as  though  the  liner  had  entered  an  inland  river.  A  chalk- 
white  lighthouse  on  which  the  sun  dazzled  —  gray,  jagged 
clrffs  against  the  northern  horizon  —  boats  hugging  the 
beach ;  they  were  at  the  mouth  of  Tokio  Bay.  They  would 
dock  at  Yokohama  late  that  afternoon. 

And  when  the  vessel  veered  sharply  northward,  in  the 
ensuing  two-hour  ride  up  that  bay,  with  the  smoke  pall  of 
Yokohama  hanging  in  the  sky  ahead  and  weird,  thatched- 
cottage,  dwarf -pine,  deep-bowered  shores  gliding  away  on 
east  and  west,  the  man's  heart  beat  with  pardonable  excite 
ment.  In  a  handful  of  hours  he  might  meet  his  father. 

It  would  be  a  dramatic  meeting,  not  without  a  trace  of 
pride  on  the  part  of  the  son. 

It  was  a  wonderful  ride  up  to  Yokohama.  The  sunshine 
was  dazzling.  The  mazarine  water  was  a-shimmer  with 
whitecaps  and  spectrums.  A  bizarre  touch  was  given  that 
seacape  by  scores  of  sampans,  native  fishing  boats,  with 
long  rudders  and  leg-o' -mutton  sails,  that  worked  so  close 
to  the  incoming  leviathan  as  to  disclose  their  contents, — 
fish  poles,  nets,  discarded  clothing,  coils  of  rope 


396  THE  FOG 

Yokohama's  smoke  drew  closer.  It  was  ten  minutes  of 
five  and  the  sun  was  beginning  to  sink  over  the  city's  western 
hills,  when  the  mighty  engines  stopped  at  last  and  the  soul 
of  the  ship  delivered  her  bulk  to  fretty  little  tugs  that  finally 
worked  her  up  against  her  dock.  The  pilings  creaked  with 
the  shock.  The  hawsers  tightened. 

The  voyage  was  ended.     Nathan  had  reached  Japan! 

As  a  dozen  half -naked  coolies  pulled  and  groaned  and 
jabbered  and  cried,  getting  the  high  gang-plank  raised,  hand 
kerchiefs  waved  on  the  dock.  Friends  recognized  friends. 
Relatives  called  joyously  to  relatives. 

The  bulk  of  the  crowd  on  shore  were  Japanese,  —  ludi 
crous  old  men  in  black  nightshirts  and  wooden  sandals,  heads 
shaded  with  cheap  straw  hats,  baggy  umbrellas  clutched 
by  their  middles;  somber-clad,  high-coiffured  Japanese 
women  surrounded  by  slathers  of  babies ;  here  and  there  the 
figure  of  a  "foreigner"  in  pongee,  a  white  face  anxiously 
seeking  the  lines  of  humans  high  above,  along  the  rail. 

Nathan  looked  for  his  father.  At  any  moment  he  might 
meet  him. 

He  eventually  descended  the  gang-plank  stairs,  down 
into  the  seething,  joyous,  jabbering,  gesticulating  mob,  in 
through  the  long,  shadowed  dock -house,  out  into  a  circular 
front  yard  where  bowler-hatted  riksha  men  sat  on  the  shafts 
of  their  vehicles  and  waited  for  fares,  beckoning  and  honk 
ing  now  frantically. 

Nathan  stored  his  bags  in  one  vehicle  and  stepped  up 
into  another.  The  lean,  sweating,  diminutive  draysters  re 
ceived  instructions;  shafts  were  raised;  the  high-wheeled, 
rubber-*tired  little  carriages  crunched  away  over  powdered 
trap-rock,  out  into  a  hard  gravel  street,  fresh  sprinkled,  off 
toward  the  hotel  in  the  cool  of  that  wonderful  afternoon. 

Japan!  Spotless  streets  flanked  by  high  stucco  walls  or 
buildings  were  shuttered  windows  —  a  bit  of  old  London, 
somehow  —  a  group  of  boys  in  gingham  playing  ball  —  half 
a  dozen  in  "bathing  suits"  riding  bicycles,  despite  clumsy 
wooden  sandals  —  rikshas  trotting  noiselessly  in  groups  of 
two  or  three,  the  sinking  sun  glinting  on  bright  steel-wire 
wheel  spokes  —  a  street  corner  with  a  far  vista  of  tiny 
dragon-scrolled  shops  —  three  nude  men  washing  after  their 
day's  labors  at  a  public  horse  trough. 

Southward  along  The  Bund  the  rikshas  rolled  along  the 


MAN'S  WORLD  397 

side  of  quiet  Tokio  Bay,  in  the  sunset;  then  came  the  long, 
low,  red  front  and  cool  porticos  of  The  Grand  Hotel  — 
much  confusion  about  procuring  Japanese  money  to  pay 
the  kuruma  men.  The  sea  trip  was  ended. 

Nathan  looked  around  the  big  lobby.  Any  one  might 
suddenly  turn  out  to  be  his  father.  But  he  saw  nb  John- 
athan. 

Nathan  followed  the  Japanese  boy  upstairs  to  his  room, 
—  a  great  airy  chamber  facing  the  east  and  —  home ! 

He  forgot  his  father  temporarily  in  the  ensuing  irritations 
of  Chinese  tradesmen  continually  knocking  at  his  door, — 
pongee  suit-makers,  boot-makers,  guides  for  the  city  in  the 
day  and  week  following.  He  liked  Japan. 


in 

Wiley  was  strolling  about  the  lobby  when  Nathan  came 
down  for  dinner.  Wiley  was  the  Y.  man  who  had  shared 
Nat's  cabin.  They  dined  together.  Afterward  they  ex 
plored  Yokohama  in  the  warm  summer  evening. 

Through  dank,  clean-smelling  side  streets  their  silent 
kuruma,  or  riksha  men,  trotted  them,  —  in  and  out  of  moon 
light  and  shadow,  past  tradesmen's  shops  where  the  trades 
man's  family  sprawled  on  shining-matted  rooms  in  the  rear, 
a  single  electric  droplight  hanging  from  the  low,  polished 
ceiling,  across  a  canal,  northwestward  where  lights  glowed 
and  music  played,  and  Theater  Street  reveled  in  illumination 
and  bunting  and  laughter. 

Laughter,  laughter !  Everywhere  was  laughter.  The  land 
was  saturated  with  it.  Old  men  laughed,  young  men  laughed, 
women  laughed,  children  shrieked  continually.  Everybody 
seemed  gloriously  happy. 

Wiley  and  Nathan  left  their  kuruma  and  walked  the 
length  of  Theater  Street,  with  its  bizarre  shops,  exotic  music, 
peanut  whistles,  shuffling  geta;  they  went  to  a  Japanese  movie 
and  sat  on  floor  cushions  while  a  "lecturer"  talked  the  film 
as  it  unreeled ;  they  bought  "ice  cream,"  —  scraped  ice  with 
fruit  juice  spilled  upon  it;  three  times  they  narrowly 
"dodged"  being  run  into  geisha  houses. 

Nathan  retired  to  bed  finally  with  a  little  twinge  of  dis 
appointment.  He  had  not  met  his  father. 


398  THE  FOG 

He  went  to  the  Consulate  promptly  next  morning. 

"Forge?"  repeated  the  consul.  "Came  out  three  years 
ago,  you  say?  I'll  have  one  of  the  boys  look  back  over  the 
books.  But  I  don't  know  any  Johnathan  Forge  living  here 
in  the  country  at  present." 

The  books  were  searched.    There  was  no  record. 

"Then  he  couldn't  have  come  here  under  that  name," 
Nathan  was  informed.  "Was  there  any  reason  why  he 
should  have  employed  a  different  one?" 

Nathan  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  he  observed. 

He  did  not  find  his  father. 


IV 

He  was  sitting  in  one  of  the  big  windows  of  the  southern 
portico  looking  out  over  Tokio  Bay,  ten  days  later,  when 
Wiley  caught  sight  of  him  and  came  abruptly  over. 

Wiley  was  in  khaki,  —  a  bright  new  uniform.  On  his  left 
sleeve  glowed  a  heavy  scarlet  triangle. 

"I'm  off  to-morrow,  Nathan,"  he  cried,  "How  goes  it? 
Found  your  goods  yet?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Nathan.  "Found  them  in  a  fine  mess !  All 
smashed  together  in  a  godown  over  in  Tsuruga,  on  the  other 
side  the  island.  They'd  been  held  up  because  of  broken 
crates  and  lack  of  tonnage  —  to  carry  them  up  across  the 
Japan  Sea." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  them?" 

"Sell  them  to  the  Japanese  Government.  To  thunder  with 
the  Russians !  In  another  year  they  won't  have  cash  enough 
to  buy  their  own  propaganda  newspapers." 

"Nat,  they're  going  to  have  a  draft  at  home!" 

"I've  heard  about  it." 

"Listen,  old  man;  why  don't  you  dodge  it  by  kicking 
into  this  thing  with  me?  You  can't  enlist  out  here;  there's 
only  the  Regulars  down  at  Manila  and  they're  not  taking 
volunteers.  If  you  wait  for  the  draft,  it'll  mean  going  way 
back  to  Vermont,  being  sent  to  camp,  maybe  not  getting  into 
the  scrap  at  all.  You're  out  here  now,  just  a  few  hundred 
miles  from  real  war.  Enlist  in  the  Red  Triangle  and  come 
on  through  to  Moscow  with  me.  I'm  going  straight  across 


MAN'S  WORLD  399 

Siberia.  Man,  it's  the  chance  of  your  life.  We'll  be  in 
the  thick  of  it  within  a  week." 

"But  I've  got  to  wait  for  an  answer  to  my  cable  first, 
Dick.  That  much  is  due  my  employers." 

"If  you  really  mean  it,  Nat,  I'll  delay  my  departure  so 
we  can  go  up  together." 

Nathan  really  meant  it.    Wiley  delayed  his  departure. 


Far  back  in  America  and  up  in  Vermont  five  weeks  later, 
Ted  Thorne  called  me  on  the  telephone  at  the  newspaper 
office. 

"Just  £ot  a  long  letter  from  Nathan,  Bill!"  he  cried. 
"And  what  do  you  suppose  that  darned  son-of-a-gun  has  gone 
to  work  and  done?  He  not  only  found  our  goods  and  took 
'em  in  charge,  but  he's  engineered  a  sale  to  the  Japanese 
Government  for  twenty-two  cents  per  garment  more  than 
we  ever  dreamed  of  getting  from  the  Russians.  And  by 
the  living  Jehosaphat,  he's  got  his  money!" 

"That's  bully,  Ted.  I  always  thought  Nat  had  the  stuff 
in  him,  if  he  only  had  a  chance.  What's  he  going  to  do 
now  —  come  home  ?" 

"No,  that's  why  I  called  you  up  —  thought  you'd  like  to 
know.  He  wants  to  join  the  American  Red  Triangle  and 
plunge  into  the  heart  of  Russia." 

"Well,  you're  going  to  let  him,  aren't  you?" 

"Holy  Moses !  Do  you  think  I'd  try  to  stop  him?  But  be 
lieve  me,  he's  going  to  have  some  jtob  with  us  if  he  ever 
comes  home !" 

VI 

Nathan  and  his  friend  Wiley  sailed  into  the  Golden  Horn 
Bay  at  Vladivostok  on  a  drizzly  morning,  the  first  day  of 
the  following  July.  The  steamer  was  the  perky  little  Pensa 
of  the  Russian  Volunteer  Fleet. 

Against  a  great  arch  of  murky  sky  on  the  three  hills  to 
the  northward  lay  the  bizarre  city  —  huge,  gaunt,  towering, 
ponderous,  mosque-domed — Siberia ! 

To  meet  the  Pensa  and  tie  it  up  along  the  wharf  with 


4oo  THE  FOG 

maximum  clumsiness  and  confusion  were  a  mob  of  men 
who  resembled  the  foreigners  below  the  railroad  yards  back 
home  in  Paris,  who  once  had  beer  delivered  to  them  reg 
ularly  on  Saturday  afternoons  and  got  into  fights  Sundays. 

Nathan  and  his  friend  had  come  into  a  nation  of  them, 
the  land  of  Whiskers,  Vodka  and  "Neechivo!"  which 
translated  into  plain  United  States  means  "I  should  worry !" 
He  was  in  a  khaki  uniform  and  a  military  cap.  On  his 
sleeve  was  a  flaming  scarlet  triangle. 

"Dick,"  he  cried,  as  he  stood  with  his  companion  in  the 
lee  of  a  deck-house  to  escape  the  rain,  "there's  adventure!" 
Nat  made  a  gesture  at  Vladivostok  and  what  lay  in  its 
mystic  hills  behind. 

"You  said  a  mouthful!"  returned  Wiley.  "And  us  for 
it!" 

Nat  left  the  ship  and  went  down  among  the  vile-smelling 
crowd  on  the  wharf.  The  crowd  enveloped  himself  and 
Wiley. 

Enveloped  them,  I  say. 

For  one  solid  year,  in  so  far  as  his  relatives  and  friends 
back  home  were  concerned,  Nathan  Forge  vanished  from 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

Siberia ! 


CHAPTER  XII 

UNTIL    WHEN? 


"We're  entraining  on  the  'eleven  o'clock'  for  New  York 
to-night,  Madge.  I'm  supposed  to  have  my  men  on  the 
transport  to-morrow  at  noon."  Gordon  pulled  back  a  khaki 
sleeve  and  looked  at  his  gunmetal  wrist-watch.  "I  must  be 
back  at  the  Armory  at  nine  o'clock  sharp.  It  will  take  me 
half  an  hour  to  reach  it.  It's  now  five  minutes  to  eight. 
So  I  suppose,  like  most  of  the  boys  about  the  city  to-night, 
I've  got  to  cram  eternity  into  thirty-five  fateful  minutes." 
Gordon  said  the  words  with  a  smile.  But  his  features  were 
white  as  chalk.  "I  suppose,  Madge,  it's  good-by!" 

"But  you  didn't  expect  orders  for  two  weeks  yet,  Gor 
don  !"  Madeline  arose  from  the  divan  with  a  hand  against 
her  heart. 

"I  know  it,  Madge!  But  the  order  came  through  sud 
denly." 

"Sit  down,  Gordon!"  The  girl's  request  was  a  piteous 
whisper. 

Gordon  laid  his  officer's  cap  on  a  corner  of  the  table. 

His  new  puttees  creaked  as  he  sank  in  an  opposite  chair. 

"Does  this  mean  —  our  last  meeting  —  before  you  go  to 
France?"  Madelaine  groped  for  the  seat  behind  her  and 
her  knees  wilted. 

"By  this  time  to-morrow  night,  I'll  be  dodging  submarines. 
Ho  for  a  life  on  the  bounding  main!"  The  man's  tone  af 
fected  a  lightness  that  was  ghastly. 

Madelaine's  throat  was  cruelly  dry  as  she  appraised  his 
fine  figure.  His  outfit  was  so  new  it  seemed  as  though  he 
were  only  playing  at  war.  He  was  so  clean-shaven  his 
cheeks  were  blue.  His  hair  was  close-cropped.  His  mouth 
was  firm.  His  eye  was  straight  and  true.  He  was  a  man ! 

"It's  come  so  quickly!  I'm  all  unprepared  —  to  say  good- 
by —  to-night,  Gordon,  dear!" 


402  THE  FOG 

"It's  all  in  the  business  —  the  dirty  business  of  wiping 
the  earth  clean  of  Huns.  But  let's  not  talk  about  that.  Let's 
talk  about  ourselves.  Let's  talk  about  —  you !" 

Madelaine  closed  her  eyes.  Her  head  was  light.  In  her 
heart  was  an  ache  like  an  ulcer.  Then  all  the  nights  she  had 
ever  lived  had  narrowed  down  to  this!  Gordon  was  going 
away  and  might  never  come  back.  Did  that  ache  in  her 
heart  mean  that  at  last  she  knew  she  loved  him?  Had  she 
discovered  in  the  past  two  weeks  what  it  meant  for  a  woman 
to  send  a  man  to  war? 

"Gordon  —  it  seems  —  it  seems  —  as  if  all  I'd  like  to  do 
would  be  to  sit  quietly  and  —  say  nothing !" 

Gordon  leaned  forward  with  elbows  on  his  knees.  He 
studied  his  hands  for  a  moment,  —  lithe,  patrician  hands. 
Very  quietly  he  said: 

"I'd  like  to  take  that  to  mean  that  you  care,  Madge.  A 
little  bit!" 

Madelaine  pressed  her  hands  against  her  eyes. 

"Oh,  Gord,"  she  said  in  a  hoarse,  difficult  whisper.  "If 
I  only  knew  —  for  a  certainty.  If  I  only  did !  If  I  only 
could!" 

"Doesn't  a  woman  recognize  love  when  it  comes  to  her, 
Madge?" 

"She  should.    That's  just  it.    Maybe  that's  the  trouble." 

"Madge,  what  is  the  trouble  between  you  and  me?  Is 
it  what  went  before  —  the  sort  of  a  chap  I  started  out  to  be?" 

"No!  No!  Somehow  I've  never  thought  of  you  that 
way  the  last  few  years.  You're  not  the  same  man  at  all. 
But  —  but  —  it's  a  serious  thing  for  a  woman  to  send  a  man 
to  war  under  the  impression  she  loves  him,  when  she  isn't 
sure  of  it  herself.  And  real  love  —  the  long,  fine,  enduring 
kind  — •  ought  not  to  leave  any  room  for  doubt." 

"I've  never  begged  for  your  love,  Madge.  I'll  not  begin 
now.  I  hoped  to  command  it " 

"And  oh,  how  splendidly  you've  done,  Gordon!  I'm  so 
proud  of  you  —  as  I  see  you  sitting  here  in  your  new  uni 
form  now  and  compare  you  with  a  boy  I  faced  one  horrible 
night  in  a  Boston  hotel.  I'm  so  proud  of  you  it  hurts.  But 
I'm  wondering  if  love  can  be  even  commanded,  Gordon?  It 
just  comes  unannounced,  for  no  apparent  reason  in  the 
world,  excepting  that  two  people  realize  they've  been  cre 
ated  for  each  other  and  want  to  be  together  always.  And 


UNTIL  WHEN?  403 

Gordon  —  in  fairness  to  you  —  I  don't  know  that  our  recog 
nition  has  yet  come  —  that  way!  Maybe  —  maybe  —  the 
war  will  show  it." 

"I  may  not  come  back  from  the  war,  Madge."  He  did 
not  say  it  as  a  threat  or  in  self-pity.  It  was  a  simple  state 
ment  of  fact  which  he  made  no  effort  to  ignore. 

"I  know,  Gordon !  Oh,  how  I  wish  I  had  a  few  weeks 
more  to  decide.  You  want  me,  don't  you,  dear?  There's 
no  doubt  in  your  love,  is  there?" 

An  unusual  thing  happened,  unusual  for  an  erect,  clean- 
cut,  strong-jawed  young  lieutenant  in  khaki  only  a  few  days 
back  from  Plattsburg.  As  Madelaine  turned  her  large, 
luminous  eyes  toward  his  face,  she  saw  his  own,  brimming 
tears.  Those  tears  dropped  down  his  smoothly  shaven  cheeks 
and  off  the  point  of  his  cleft  chin.  He  made  no  move  to 
brush  them  away  —  did  not  act  as  though  he  realized  they 
were  there. 

"No,  Madelaine,"  he  said  solemnly,  "in  my  love  for  you 
there's  no  doubt.  There's  never  been  a  doubt.  And  1 
brought  you  something  to-night  I  hope  to  leave  with  you  — 
as  a  pledge  between  us — until  'the  war  is  over.' " 

His  fingers  were  steady,  as  steady  as  his  voice  when  he 
unbuttoned  the  breast  pocket  of  his  uniform  and  from  it  took 
a  little  box  of  wine-red  plush.  He  snapped  back  the  cover. 

The  library  lamp  caught  an  iridescent  drop  of  white  fire, 
cold  as  a  thousand  winters,  pure  as  a  baby's  tear,  with  all 
the  love  and  tragedy  of  the  race  deep  in  its  refractive  depths. 

Gordon  passed  it  across. 

It  was  the  ring  he  hoped  her  to  wear,  —  the  gift  which 
stood  for  his  heart.  It  was  significant  that  the  man  did 
not  take  the  ring  from  its  white  satin  casket.  He  did  not 
try  to  crush  it  on  her  finger. 

The  girl  gazed  down  upon  it. 

"You  beautiful,  beautiful  thing!"  she  whispered  rever 
ently. 

"Somehow  I  had  to  save  it  for  the  last  minute,  dear.  I've 
carried  it  for  weeks  because  —  because  —  I  either  wanted  to 
go  away  deliriously  happy  or  knowing  there  wasn't  any  hope. 
Then  war  would  be  mighty  welcome." 

"Don't  say  that,  Gordon !    It  —  implies  a  weakness !" 

"I  might  as  well  be  honest,  Madge." 

"Gordon,  if  I  take  this  ring  and  wear  it,  I'll  be  engaged 


404  THE  FOG 

to  you.  And  if  you  come  back  safely,  it  means  that  we'll 
be  married." 

"Pray  God  I  come!" 

"Do  you  know  what  it  means  for  a  girl  to  be  engaged  to 
a  man?  After  the  word  is  spoken,  that  man  will  be  my  life 
and  my  world." 

"I  know." 

"Then  don't  you  see  at  what  a  cruel  disadvantage  you're 
placing  me?  To  leave  this  until  the  last  moment  so?  To 
ask  me  to  love  you  forever  —  while  in  my  heart  there's  the 
least  little  doubt?" 

"You  know  I  didn't  mean  it  for  an  intrigue,  Madge." 

"True!  I  can't  conceive  of  you  doing  such  a  thing  — 
now.  And  yet,  oh,  Gordon,  I  want  so  much  to  make  you 
happy,  to  reward  you  for  your  manhood  and  your  faith  and 
your  hope.  And  yet,  dear  boy,  I  want  to  be  happy,  deliri 
ously  happy,  myself.  Not  for  my  own  selfishness  but  be 
cause  that  much  will  also  be  due  to  you !" 

Her  appeal  was  suddenly  that  of  the  lonely  little  orphan 
girl  pleading  for  a  chance  to  give  of  her  nameless  life  and 
love  to  its  fullest. 

"Gordon!" 

"Yes,  dear?" 

"Can't  we  —  can't  we  —  let  the  war  decide  ?" 

"What  do  you  mean,  let  the  war  decide  ?" 

"Can't  you  go  away  with  my  promise  that  when  you 
return  you  shall  have  my  answer  —  with  the  knowledge  that 
you're  the  first  man  thus  far  in  my  life  —  that  I  love  you 
more  dearly  than  any  other  man  up  till  to-night  —  that  the 
ending  of  the  war  may  bring  more  happiness  than  either 
of  us  dare  dream?  Can't  you  go  away  being  happy  and 
temporarily  satisfied  with  that?" 

His  voice  was  like  aching  iron  as  he  asked: 

"You  wish  it,  Madelaine?" 

"I  wish  it  — yes!" 

"And  —  what  of  the  ring  ?" 

"Because  you're  so  far  the  dearest  man  in  my  life  —  closer 
than  any  man  has  yet  become  —  I'll  keep  the  ring.  But  it 
must  lie  in  white  satin  until  I'm  sure.  Then  when  the 
Better  World  we're  fighting  for  has  come,  and  you  return 
with  victory  —  perhaps  there'll  be  an  Amethyst  Moment 
when  you  may  take  this  beautiful  thing  from  its  satin  and 


UNTIL  WHEN?  405 

place  it  on  my  finger,  Gordon.  And  if  the  doubt  is  all  washed 
away,  that  moment  will  be  very,  very  sweet.  That's  half  a 
promise,  Gordon.  But  it  can't  be  a  full  promise  —  yet.  I 
must  know  for  certain." 

"If  you  wish  it,  Madelaine.  Above  everything,  your  hap 
piness  comes  first." 

She  moved  over  so  that  by  leaning  forward  she  could  drop 
her  forehead  on  his  tightly  interlaced  fingers.  Her  free 
tears  fell  upon  those  fingers.  He  unclasped  them.  One 
hand  smoothed  her  wondrous  hair.  Then  he  bent  and  placed 
a  kiss  upon  that  hair,  tenderly. 

"I  know  you  love  me  very  much  indeed,  when  you  say 
that,  Gordon.  A  girl  could  easily  trust  herself  to  a  man 
who'd  think  of  her  happiness  so  much  at  such  a  time  as 
this." 

For  fifteen  minutes  that  would  never  come  again  they 
sat  so,  the  girl's  left  hand  gripping  the  wine-colored  box 
and  the  trinket  which  meant  the  ultimate  surrender  of  her 
womanhood  and  heart  forever.  Her  deft  fingers  toyed  with 
the  clasp.  Her  other  hand  gripped  Gordon's  wrist.  And 
that  hand  was  cold. 

"And  if  I  don't  come  back,  dear?"  he  said  hoarsely  at 
last. 

"Maybe,  Gordon,  I'll  wear  no  other  ring  —  the  rest  of 
my  life.  Who  knows?" 

"Perhaps,  after  all,  dear  girl,  it's  better  so." 

"But  even  until  I  know,  I  shall  have  a  little  song  in  my 
heart,  dear.  I  shall  have  a  man  at  the  wars.  And  he  is  a 
man!  Of  that  there's  never  a  doubt.  Not  even  now,  to 
night." 

Verily  in  the  life  of  every  man,  sooner  or  later,  comes 
one  white-hot  moment  when  small  things  drop  away. 
Prophets  and  seers  are  silenced  and  dismissed.  The  earth 
is  without  form  and  void.  Darkness  is  often  upon  the  face 
of  the  deep.  With  only  great  thoughts,  great  feelings,  great 
decencies  left  in  nakedness  to  give  what  help  they  can  in 
that  zero  hour  in  Gethsemane,  a  man  proves  himself,  not 
for  what  others  have  tried  to  make  or  unmake  him,  but  for 
what  he  will  be  when  God  has  returned  and  ordered  there 
be  light  again. 

Gordon  arose,  that  last  night,  that  last  hour,  that  last 
moment,  alone  with  the  girl  he  loved.  And  because  his  own 


406  THE  FOG 

happiness  would  perchance  make  that  girl  unhappy,  at  least 
cast  a  shadow  upon  her  happiness,  he  accepted  a  great  dis 
appointment.  And  he  never  murmured. 

"I  must  go,"  he  said  simply. 

The  girl  stood  before  him,  pale  and  fine,  exquisite  and 
fragile,  the  biggest  and  best  thing  that  had  ever  been  in  his 
life.  Calm  eyes  were  starry  now.  They  were  raised  to  his 
face.  She  was  trying  to  smile.  She  could  not  send  him 
away  knowing  she  had  not  smiled. 

"Gordon!" 

"Yes,  dear,"  he  answered  huskily. 

"You  may  kiss  me  —  if  you  will,  Gordon.  My  lips  are 
yours  —  just  once  —  to-night  —  freely." 

He  stole  his  arms  about  her  soft  shoulders  as  though  he 
feared  to  profane  and  desecrate  a  holy  thing.  She  raised  her 
sweet  face  to  his,  fearlessly,  poignantly,  softened  with  the 
parting. 

He  kissed  her.  But  it  was  not  upon  her  lips.  It  was  upon 
her  fine,  cold  forehead. 

The  choice  had  been  his.  He  could  have  tasted  her  lips, 
but  he  did  not  want  to  remember  them  —  so.  He  had 
changed  much  in  the  last  few  years.  He  went  away  without 
that  memory  to  haunt  him. 

He  knew  he  had  lost.  Madelaine  Theddon  would  never 
be  his  wife. 

ii 

Gracia  Theddon  came  home  about  eleven  o'clock.  De 
spite  the  iron  gray  in  her  hair,  the  years  seemed  to  have  had 
small  effect  upon  her.  She  had  changed  little  since  that 
day  at  the  Orphanage.  But  then,  that  might  have  been 
Madelaine  and  the  great  happiness  she  had  found  in  her 
daughter. 

"Madelaine !"  she  cried,  "the  boys  are  entraining  to-night ! 
Gordon's  company !  We  should  have  been  told,  so  we  could 
have  gone  to  the  station  to  see  them  off  —  why,  Madelaine ! 
—  what's  the  matter,  child?" 

"I  know  about  the  boys  entraining  to-night.  Gordon  has 
been  here  this  evening.  I  —  know !" 

Mrs.  Theddon  dropped  off  her  hat,  her  furs,  her  coat. 
The  daughter,  woman-grown  though  she  was,  came  into  her 


UNTIL  WHEN?  407 

arms.  Together  they  sank  to  the  divan,  the  daughter  a  dis 
traught  little  girl,  sobbing  upon  her  mother's  lap. 

"He  asked  me  to  be  his  wife  for  the  last  time  to-night, 
mother  mine.  He  brought  me  a  —  diamond." 

"Madelaine!     Are  you  engaged  to  marry  him?" 

"I  couldn't,  mother -mine!  I  couldn't!  I  couldn't!  I 
love  Gordon.  But  somehow  it's  the  great  love  of  a  sister 
for  a  brother.  Oh,  mother-mine,  what's  the  matter  with 
me?  What  is  it?  What  is  it?" 

What  could  Mrs.  Theddon  say? 

"I  feel  that  I've  so  much  to  offer,  mother-mine,  so  much 
to  give !  And  I  want  my  heart  to  leap  as  I  give  it.  I  want 
to  look  into  his  face  —  his  eyes  —  and  read  there  the  great, 
sweet  mystery  that  we  were  made  for  each  other  from  the 
first.  I  want  the  world  to  fade  out  as  he  takes  me.  I  want 
to  abandon  myself  in  his  tenderness.  I  want  to  lose  all 
that  I  am,  or  ever  may  be,  in  the  depths  of  his  love  which  I 
know  in  that  one  great  Moment  I'm  meeting  gloriously.  I 
want  Romance  —  mother-mine!  And  I  want  it  to  bear  me 
up  and  away  to  a  Palace  where  the  eastern  sunrise  lies  al 
ways  radiant  upon  its  towers.  And  I  haven't  found  it, 
mother-mine.  I've  only  found  a  sweet,  deep  friendship  that 
makes  me  feel  that  the  real  essence  of  womanhood  is  passing 
me  by !" 

"Madelaine!  Madelaine!  You  tear  my  heart  when  you 
talk  so !" 

"I  want  a  man  who's  been  through  more  than  Gordon 
has  —  whose  fight  has  cost  him  more  —  who's  been  true  to 
himself  in  spite  of  everything!  I  want  a  man  who's  gone 
through  dark  shadows  and  black  fog  —  and  never  once  lost 
faith  that  somewhere  above  the  sun  was  shining  brightly. 
I  want  to  work  with  him,  play  with  him,  laugh  with  him, 
love  with  him.  I  want  him  to  draw  upon  me,  to  feed  upon 
me,  body  as  well  as  brain  —  to  leave  me  stronger  than  ever 
for  the  things  I  may  give  him.  I  want  to  be  his  work 
mate,  his  playmate,  his  hunt-mate,  his  home-mate!  I  want 
to  be  his  partner,  his  mother,  his  sister,  his  mistress  —  every 
thing,  everything,  everything!  I  want  to  feel  that  he's  the 
other  half  of  myself,  for  whom  I've  hunted  a  dreary  time 
and  found  at  last  —  and  know  that  all  the  world  is  wonderful 
and  God  is  good.  And  I  haven't  found  that  man  yet,  mother- 
mine.  I've  never  met  him  yet.  And  I  want  to  meet  him  so. 


408  THE  FOG 

I'm  cruelly  lonely  without  him.  I've  suffered  that  loneli 
ness  a  hideous  time.  Where  is  he,  mother-mine?  Tell  me 
where  he  is,  that  I  can  go  to  him  quickly  ?  Wherever  he  is, 
he  wants  me  —  he  needs  me !  Right  at  this  moment  he's  hun 
gry  for  me,  too!" 

"Hush,  dear !  Don't  feel  so  badly !  You'll  meet  him  yet. 
I  know  you'll  meet  him  yet.  God  is  good!  He  wouldn't 
permit  it  otherwise." 

"I've  never  had  a  real  love  affair,  mother-mine.  But  it's 
not  because  I've  never  wanted  to  love.  It's  because  I  could 
never  seem  to  throw  myself  away.  I  had  to  save  myself  — 
for  him!  Maybe  I'm  a  silly  little  idealist,  mother-mine. 
But  I've  dreamed  so  much!  I  couldn't  be  satisfied  with 
any  one  but  him!  I  couldn't!  I  couldn't!" 

"And  you  mustn't,  dear,"  declared  Gracia  Theddon. 


in 

It  was  nearly  midnight. 

"Mother,"  cried  the  girl  fiercely  as  she  walked  the  room, 
'"'I've  got  to  get  into  this  thing!  I've  got  to  have  some  part 
in  this  war !  Some  great,  vital,  strength-sapping  part !  I 
can't  stay  here  merely  folding  bandages  and  waiting,  wait 
ing,  waiting !  I've  got  to  do  something  —  with  my  hands, 
my  heart  —  all  that  I  am  or  can  be !  They're  going  away  — 
the  boys  —  to  die  —  to  pour  themselves  out  —  to  give  their 
all  to  make  a  better  and  safer  world.  And  I  can't  merely 
wait  and  smugly  accept  the  fruits  of  their  sacrifice.  I'm 
going  to  get  in!" 

"But  what  can  you  do,  my  dear?  Your  studies  aren't  yet 
completed.  They  won't  take  you  as  a  doctor.  You  know 
nothing  in  the  way  of  a  trade  or  a " 

"I'll  find  a  place!  I'll  make  a  place!  Maybe. off  over 
the  rim  of  the  world  I'll  find  my  Amethyst  Moment  — 
though  it's  only  for  a  moment !  I've  got  to  get  in !" 

"God  will  it!"  whispered  Gracia  Theddon,  as  somewhere 
a  clock  struck  twelve  —  deep-toned  and  mellow. 

She  had  to  get  into  the  war! 

Madelaine  went  to  her  room.  Features  deathly  pale  with 
all  the  emotions  the  evening  had  wrought,  she  turned  down 
the  heavy  lid  of  her  desk  and  pulled  on  the  tiny  chain  of 


UNTIL  WHEN?  409 

her  writing  lamp.  But  she  did  not  write.  She  had  nothing 
to  write.  She  sat  before  her  desk,  elbows  upon  it,  strong, 
lithe  fingers  covering  her  face. 

Finally,  with  a  breath  as  though  for  strength,  she  reached 
into  one  of  the  lower  pigeonholes  and  drew  forth  a  packet 
of  letters.  Among  them  she  found  one  that  she  sought.  It 
had  a  Chicago  postmark. 

.  .  .  and  perhaps  you  might  like  to  know,  she  read,  that 
the  fellow  you  were  so  curious  about  a  while  ago,  the  Forge 
fellow,  that  I  might  have  told  you  about  all  along  if  I'd  only 
known  you  were  interested  in  him,  .  .  .  called  off  to  see  me  on 
his  way  through  to  San  Francisco  last  week  ...  he  brought 
me  a  little  packet  of  love-letters  we  wrote  to  each  other  when  we 
were  school-kids,  years  ago  .  .  .  Oh,  Madge,  dear,  you're  the 
dearest  friend  I  ever  had,  I've  got  to  tell  you !  .  .  .  after  he 
had  gone  they  broke  me  all  up,  Madge !  After  all,  they  meant 
so  much !  .  .  .  I  told  you  a  story,  Madge,  when  I  said  he  didn't 
come  out  of  that  jail  scrape  clean.  He  did  come  out  of  it  clean. 
He's  an  awful  provincial,  Madge,  .  .  .  he'd  shock  you  to  death  in 
lots  of  ways  ...  his  etiquette  is  impossible  .  .  .  but  I  guess  he 
never  had  a  chance,  Madge,  like  you  and  me.  I'm  sorry  I  treated 
him  so.  I  said  a  lot  of  things  which  hurt  him  terribly.  But 
he's  gone  now  and  I  don't  know  where  he  is,  to  let  him  know 
I'm  sorry  ...  he  lost  both  his  child  and  his  wife  ...  there's 
no  woman  in  his  life  ...  but  there's  something  hickory  about 
him,  Madge,  deep  down  under  his  awful  manners  . . .  oh,  Madge ! 
...  I  wish  he  didn't  come  from  a  small  town  ...  I  wish  he 
wasn't  a  small-town  fellow  ...  I  wish  I  wasn't  so  world-wise 
...  I'd  like  to  have  him  love  me  greatly,  a  man  like  him  .  .  .  and 
forget  .  .  .  everything  ...  in  his  great,  strong  tenderness  .  .  . 

Madelaine  read  the  letter,  in  its  coarse,  underscored  pen 
manship,  to  the  end. 

It  was  two  o'clock  when  she  laid  down  on  her  bed  and 
tried  to  get  a  few  hours'  sleep  before  morning. 

Next  day  the  marines  went  into  action  at  Chateau-Thierry. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

INTERLUDE 


Take  your  atlas,  find  Siberia,  locate  Vladivostok  in  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  Japan  Sea  and  trace  your  finger 
inland.  Follow  the  Trans-Siberian  railroad.  One  branch 
will  travel  upward  along  the  Amur  River,  as  though  in  the 
United  States  the  traveler  started  from  Boston,  went  north 
ward  and  down  the  St.  Lawrence,  to  reach  Buffalo.  An 
other  branch  of  the  Trans-Siberian  drops  in  a  southwesterly 
direction  toward  Harbin,  Manchuria,  then  up  to  Chita,  away 
across  the  steppes  to  Lake  Baikal  and  beyond,  thousands  of 
miles  beyond,  almost  in  a  straight  line  into  European  Russia. 
Transposing  Vladivostok  for  Boston,  Harbin  would  be  Bing- 
hamton,  Chita  would  be  Buffalo,  Lake  Baikal  would  be  Lake 
Michigan,  Irkutsk  would  be  Chicago.  Further  west  Omsk 
would  be  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  Ekaterinburg  would  be  Den 
ver,  the  Urals  would  be  the  Rockies,  Petrograd  would  be 
San  Francisco,  Moscow  would  be  Los  Angeles.  The  geo 
graphical  similarity  of  the  two  countries  is  extraordinary. 
Only  Siberian  distances  are  three  times  as  great  and  Siberian 
populations  one-thirtieth  as  large. 

If  any  lasting  gain  is  totaled  from  the  great  Russian  bed 
lam,  emphasized  in  it  prominently  must  be  the  opening  of 
Siberia  to  the  world.  As  boys  and  girls,  and  even  as  grown 
men  and  women,  we  thought  of  Siberia  as  an  arctic  waste 
of  snow  and  ice,  ravaged  by  man -hunting  wolves,  dottec' 
with  world-lost  exile  mines,  peopled  by  a  strange  semi- 
barbaric  race  in  fur  and  lambskin  and  dwelling  in  half- 
real  dusk  beneath  the  bondage  of  the  knout. 

It  is  only  the  winter  picture  which  has  come  to  us ;  then 
only  such  a  picture  as  a  Russian  traveler  in  America  might 
carry  home  by  describing  conditions  around  a  Hudson  Bay 
trading  post  in  late  January. 


INTERLUDE  411 

Siberia  is  a  pleasant,  smiling  land,  a  land  of  sunshine  and 
blue  distances,  of  green  fields  and  wild  flowers.  It  is  a  land 
of  bowered  forests,  baked  prairies,  heat-soaked  deserts,  bab 
bling  brooks,  plashing,  purling  rivers. 

And  the  eye  of  mortal  man  since  Eden  has  never  gazed 
upon  such  sunsets! 

It  has  great  cities  with  paved  streets,  electric  car  lines, 
pretentious  stores,  massive  theaters,  imposing  mansions.  And 
a  high-caste  Siberian  Tartar  knows  how  to  make  his  resi 
dence  imposing.  Many  of  the  great  railroad  stations,  when 
lighted  and  viewed  at  a  distance  by  night,  resemble  the  mar 
ble  halls  which  come  to  us  in  dreams.  But  alas,  Siberia  has 
its  little  earth-lost  country  villages  —  its  "small  towns"  too  — 
its  Podunk  Corners  and  its  Gilberts  Mills,  its  East  Gileads 
and  its  Hastings  Crossings.  Russian  writers  have  dwelt 
unduly  upon  peasant  life  in  these  earth -lost  villages  —  as 
though  an  American  Tolstoi  drew  a  picture  of  contempora 
neous  American  life  solely  from  Rupert  Hughes's  "Car 
thage"  or  Sinclair  Lewis's  "Gopher  Prairie",  eliminating  and 
ignoring  entirely  Boston,  New  York,  Palm  Beach,  New  Or 
leans,  San  Francisco.  There  are  many  intermediate  steps  in 
Russian  living  between  six  log  huts  clustered  on  a  prairie 
where  half -wild  males  and  females  rear  families  like  animals, 
and  the  Imperial  Ballet  at  St.  Petersburg  or  the  Grand 
Mosque  at  Moscow,  as  both  existed  before  the  cataclysm. 

In  the  heart  of  Eastern  Siberia  is  Great  Baikal,  a  lake 
sixty  miles  long  and  twenty  to  thirty  miles  wide.  On  the 
northwest  corner  of  this  lake,  back  on  the  Irkut  River,  lies 
the  city  of  Irkutsk.  In  size  it  compares  with  Springfield, 
Massachusetts,  or  Cincinnati,  Ohio.  The  river  flows  through 
the  metropolis.  The  railroad  station  and  freight  yards  are 
set  upon  the  western  bank,  the  main  part  of  the  city  upon 
the  eastern.  Connecting  the  two  is  a  dilapidated  floating 
bridge  of  gray,  weather-beaten,  flood-racked  timbers. 

Irkutsk  was  the  farthest  western  point  reached  by  Jap 
anese  or  Yankee  troops  in  the  recent  Intervention.  From 
Irkutsk  westward  to  the  Urals,  the  Germans  were  check 
mated  from  shipping  submarines  in  sections  across  the  Trans- 
Siberian  for  submersion  in  the  Japan  Sea  and  "unrestricted" 
warfare  in  the  Pacific,  by  a  stout  little  army  of  pro-Ally 
Slavs  who  should  have  a  place  in  history  with  Ulysses  on 
his  Odyssey  and  Leonidas  at  the  Pass. 


412  THE  FOG 

From  Russian  internment  camps  under  Kerensky  "the 
Talker",  the  Czecho-slovaks  —  pronounced  "Checko-slow- 
vacks"  —  started  for  France,  via  Siberia,  Japan,  America, 
the  Atlantic.  The  Germans,  through  Lenine,  heard  and  said 
they  should  not  go.  France  said  they  should  go  and  sup 
plied  the  money.  The  Czechs  were  willing,  eager,  to  go. 
So  they  fought  their  way  forward,  holding  the  Trans-Si 
berian  as  they  moved,  to  journey  no  farther  than  Vladivos 
tok. 

But  there  were  no  Lusitania  horrors  in  the  Pacific. 


ii 

Far  down  the  southern  end  of  the  Irkutsk  railroad  yards 
on  a  muddy  night  in  September,  1918,  three  men  in  khaki 
sat  in  a  caboose  freight  car  around  a  small  sheet-iron  store. 
Upon  a  near-by  shelf -table,  a  lone  candle  burned  in  an 
empty  bottle. 

The  interior  of  the  car  was  warm  but  sordid.  Living 
utensils  and  army  paraphernalia  were  strewn  around,  with 
scraps  of  food.  In  an  alcove  behind,  two  rumpled  bunks 
showed  indistinctly.  Outside  the  wind  was  blowing,  bring 
ing  down  the  febrile,  incessant  tootings  of  locomotive  switch 
ers  up  the  yards,  where  swarthy  engineers  in  lambskin  hats 
signaled  their  yardmen  with  maximum  of  noise  and  blun 
der. 

They  were  lean-jawed,  copper-faced  men  with  khaki  shirts 
torn  open  roughly  at  their  throats.  One  had  the  insignia 
of  the  United  States  Engineering  Corps  (officially  known 
as  the  "Stevens  Mission")  on  his  pocket.  The  others  were 
Red  Triangle  "secretaries."  And  the  air  was  blue  with 
their  pipe  smoke.  They  talked  horrors  which  will  never  be 
written  in  books. 

A  pause  came  in  their  conversation.  The  locomotive  blasts 
died  down.  For  a  time  the  silence  was  so  deep  the  only  sound 
was  the  crackle  of  the  flames  in  the  stove  or  a  meditative 
tapping  of  a  briar-stem  against  the  smaller  man's  teeth.  The 
deepness  of  that  silence  was  suddenly  disturbed  by  a  noise. 
It  was  a  noise  like  a  cry.  It  was  followed  by  a  thud.  Some 
one  had  fallen  on  the  outside  steps. 

A  burly  young  fellow  from  Scranton,  Pennsylvania,  in 


INTERLUDE  413 

charge  of  the  Y  train  at  the  moment,  leapt  up  and  opened 
the  door.  "What  do  you  want?"  he  cried  irritably  into 
the  dark.  Some  drunken  trainman  was  probably  after 
"pappyroose"  —  Russian  cigarettes  —  again. 

"Give  me  a  hand,  will  you?  This  is  the  Y.  car,  isn't  it? 
I'm  —  all  —  in !" 

"My  God !"  cried  the  Y.  man.    "It's  a  Yank !" 

They  helped  the  stranger  into  the  car.  The  door  was 
closed,  shutting  out  the  murky  night.  The  stranger  sank 
on  an  inverted  box  by  the  wall  shelf  and  for  a  minute  leaned 
his  forehead  over  on  his  wrist.  Then  he  raised  a  gaunt, 
haggard  face  and  looked  at  each  man  in  turn. 

The  three  saw  a  fellow  countryman  of  twenty-eight  or 
thirty  who  might  have  come  through  the  well-known  Inferno 
as  amanuensis  for  the  late  Mr.  Dante.  His  uniform  was  foul 
with  grease,  dried  mud,  stains  of  origin  beyond  explana 
tion.  His  eyes  were  deep-sunken.  Hair  fell  an  inch  over 
his  collar.  His  thin  beard  was  stringy  and  ragged.  He 
wore  an  old  Russian  hat  with  a  great  chunk  of  the  lamb- 
wool  missing  in  front. 

"I  just  got  in,"  he  said,  "train  pulled  in  a  few  minutes 
ago  — haven't  eaten  anything  for  two  days  —  rode  for  the 
past  forty-eight  hours  packed  away  in  a  dark  berth  behind 
two  stinking  Chinamen.  Who's  got  a  —  cigarette?" 

Three  pairs  of  hands  began  frantically  fumbling  in  six 
pairs  of  pockets. 

"What's  your  name,  'bo?  Where' ve  you  come  from — 
now?" 

"Forge  is  my  name —  Nat  Forge.  I've  just  come  through 
from  —  from  —  Moscow." 

Crack!  One  of  the  briars  had  fallen  to  the  floor  and  the 
hard-rubber  stem  had  broken  in  two  pieces. 

"Forge?  Nat  Forge?  God  in  heaven!  Are  you  —  the 
fellow  —  that  started  in  toward  Moscow  with  Dick  Wiley 
a  year  ago?  Where's  Wiley?" 

"Dead,"  responded  Nat  simply.  "They  shot  him.  Let 
me  have  that  cigarette." 

They  got  him  his  cigarette.  They  got  him  many  cigarettes. 
They  rolled  them  for  him  as  fast  as  he  could  smoke  them, 
meeting  each  other's  eyes  blankly.  The  fellow  from  Scran- 
ton  dug  around  in  his  boxes  and  cartons  for  food.  The 
fire  was  poked  in  thick  silence.  A  battered  pot  was  set 


414  THE  FOG 

thereon.  Coffee  was  sifted  in  from  a  scoop  of  open  fingers 
down  in  a  bag. 

They  finally  set  food  before  him.  They  had  sense  enough 
not  to  prod  the  famished,  emaciated  man  with  dam  fool  ques 
tions  until  he  had  partially  recovered  his  strength. 

"War?  Gad,  boys  —  I've  seen  enough  war!  You  guys 
at  this  end  of  the  country  don't  know  anything  about  it. 
This  is  the  first  square  meal  I've  eaten  in  seven  months. 
I  mean  it.  Seven  months.  Since  last  February  when  we 
left  Omsk,  going  east." 

It  was  pathetic,  the  way  he  ate  that  food.    A  square  meal ! 

"You  been  in  Moscow  —  ever  since  ?" 

"No.  We  reached  Moscow,  turned  right  round  and  walked 
right  out  again.  I've  been  with  the  Czechs  at  Kolybelsk. 
I'm  on  my  way  out  —  to  Harbin  or  Vladivostok  —  to  see  if 
I  can't  hustle  along  some  supplies.  Medical  supplies.  They're 
chopping  off  arms  and  legs  down  there  with  butcher  knives 
and  no  anesthetics." 

Ten  minutes  had  elapsed  before  more  was  spoken.  The 
sudden  introduction  of  food  into  the  man's  weakened  vitals 
distressed  him.  He  drank  cup  after  cup  of  the  vile  coffee. 
But  it  was  hot.  Heat  was  what  counted.  Then  more  ciga 
rettes.  Eleven  of  them. 

"I  know  my  clothes  must  smell  like  hell,  boys,  but  if 
you'd  seen  what  I've  been  thrown  among,  coming  across 
from " 

"I've  got  an  extra  outfit  you  can  change  into,"  offered 
the  man  from  Scranton.  "Jake,  turn  some  fresh  water  into 
that  kettle  and  put  it  on.  Forge'll  want  to  shave." 

"Yes,"  said  Nat,  with  a  choke  of  emotion  at  being  among 
his  countrymen  again.  "And  which  of  you  boys  is  a  bar 
ber?  Some  one's  got  to  harvest  this  hair.  Nothing  fancy. 
Anything  to  get  it  off." 

Nat  took  a  sponge  bath,  nude  at  one  side  before  them, 
at  the  huge  samovar.  He  changed  into  clean  garments.  He 
removed  his  stringy  beard  with  scissors  and  shaved  his  face. 
His  hair  was  sheared.  He  came  back  and  sat  down  at  the 
stove. 

"When  did  they  shoot  Wiley?    What  for?" 

"They  shot  him  at  Krasnoyek.  We  got  there  in  the  rainy 
dark.  We  were  on  our  way  back  toward  Ekaterinburg. 
Something  was  the  matter  with  his  papers  —  a  V  wasn't 


INTERLUDE  415 

crossed  or  an  V  dotted  somewhere.  He  was  standing  within 
three  feet  of  me  —  without  a  word  they  asked  him  to  step 
aside  —  an  official  pumped  four  bullets  from  an  automatic 
into  his  chest  and  stomach  before  he  knew  what  it  was  all 
about  —  he  looked  at  me  in  surprise  —  sort  of  sickly  —  he 
just  sank  down  to  a  sitting  posture  on  the  ground,  holding 
himself  up  on  a  stiffened  arm,  his  other  hand  at  his  stomach 

—  then  he  laid  his  forehead  down  on  his  wrist  —  he  never 
spoke  a  word  —  just  died.     God  damn  this  bloody  country 
and  all  the  low-browed  fiends  in  it!     It's  getting  just  what 
it  deserves  —  my  papers  happened  to  be  all  right  —  thank  the 
Lord  for  tobacco  —  how  long  you  fellows  been  here,  anyhow 

—  and  for  the  love  of  Mike,  tell  me  what's  happening  in 
France  ?" 

in 

The  Americans  were  "doing  things"  in  France.  The  Ger 
man  steam-roller  had  smashed  head-on  into  another  steam 
roller  and  the  second  steam-roller  had  not  been  the  one 
reduced  to  pig  iron. 

"We're  givin'  'em  hell !"  informed  the  Stevens  man.  "Con 
sulate  here  got  a  long  wire  this  morning.  We're  hangin' 
our  dirty  shirts  on  the  Hindenburg  line  and  pepperin'  Chin- 
less  Willy's  pants  with  buckshot  so  he  looks  like  a  country 
signboard." 

"Down  where  we  were,  not  a  word's  come  through  since 
the  fuss  at  Chateau-Thierry.  Won  that,  didn't  we?" 

"Won  it?  Won  it?  Think  the  Yanks  come  across  to 
hold  a  tea  party,  maybe?  God!  They're  only  stoppin'  the 
slaughter  o'  Huns  when  their  rifles  get  hot  and  plug.  This 
war's  goin'  to  be  over  by  Christmas,  I'd  almost  be  willin'  to 
bet  by  Thanksgiving.  I  hear  there  was  one  time  they  or 
dered  the  Yanks  to  retire  but  the  order  to  retire  couldn't 
catch  up  with  'em  fast  enough  so  they  used  it  to  wipe  Ger 
man  blood  off  their  pants.  And  went  out  and  killed  a  few 
thousand  more  before  supper  just  to  call  it  a  day!  You 
been  out  here  since  it  first  started,  ain't  you  ?" 

"Wiley  and  I  came  up  a  year  ago  last  July.  A  year  ago 
last  July !  Fellows,  it  seems  like  —  it  seems  like  —  eighteen 
years !" 

They  were  very  sober.     They  understood. 


4i6  THE  FOG 

"And  what  do  you  hear  from  America  —  home  ?" 

They  told  him  all  they  had  heard  from  America  and— » 
home. 

At  eleven  o'clock  that  night,  Nathan  was  still  talking. 

" in  those  get-away  trains  from  Moscow  the  poor 

devils  were  even  hanging  to  the  locomotives  —  like  flies  — 
some  standing  on  the  red-hot  piston  boxes,  gripping  the  cow 
catchers.  They  slammed  us  into  a  freight  car  and  locked 
us  in  —  pitch  dark !  —  men  and  women,  Lord  it  didn't  make 
any  difference  who  or  what  we  were !  —  two  hundred 
and  twenty -one  of  us  slammed  in  a  tepluska,  crammed  so 
tightly  we  couldn't  raise  our  hands  to  our  shoulders  — 
twenty- four  hours  of  it  —  agony  just  standing  up,  and  when 
we  couldn't  stand  up  any  longer  we  just  sagged  on  those 
about  us  —  they  took  out  seventy-eight  corpses  when  they 
finally  unlocked  the  door  and  let  us  out  —  rode  with  a  dead 
woman  pushed  so  hard  into  my  right  side  her  cold  body  hurt 
my  ribs  —  she  was  a  well-dressed  woman  too;  her  fur  boa 
kept  tickling  my  ear  —  and  the  typhus  down  there !  What 
do  you  hear  from  the  Red  Cross  ?  Any  trains  come  out  this 
way?" 

"Doc  Seaver  and  Cleeve  are  headed  this  way  with  a  train. 
The  Consulate  expects  them  some  time  the  last  of  next 
week." 

Nathan  leaned  forward  with  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"Thirty  million  dead  in  Russia  since  the  bust  started  — 
think  of  it,  fellows  —  thirty  million!  That's  an  awful  mass 
of  dead  bodies." 

"Yes,"  said  the  Scranton  man  tersely.  And  the  railroad 
man  observed,  "I'm  natcherly  a  peaceable  yap.  But  for  once, 
if  they'd  lynch  that  dam'  Kaiser,  believe  me,  I'd  pull  on 
the  rope!"" 

"Amen !"  said  the  small  man  who  had  not  spoken. 

"I  wonder  what  the  chances  are  for  getting  transporta 
tion  through  to  Vladivostok  ?  Lord,  I've  got  to  get  through ! 
Those  poor  devils  off  there  at  'Cold-belly'  as  we  called  it, 
are  dying  like  flies,  just  for  bandages  and  disinfectant." 

"Better  go  over  to  the  Consulate  in  the  morning  and  ask 
Thompson.  He'll  know.  There's  a  he-man."  This  from 
the  engineer. 

"They  run  a  string  of  'empties'  through  to  Harbin  for 
supplies  about  once  a  week,"  added  the  chap  from  Scranton. 


INTERLUDE  417 

"There's  a  consular  courier  named  Roach  going  out  when  the 
next  one  starts.     Maybe  you  could  kick  in  with  him." 


IV 

Hartshorn,  the  Scranton  man,  offered  Nat  the  upper  bunk 
in  the  caboose  car  that  night.  And  Nathan  crawled  in  be 
tween  blankets  for  the  first  time  in  weeks. 

It  was  very  easy  to  think,  lying  awake  there  in  the  dark. 
But  Nathan  did  not  want  to  think.  He  wanted  to  forget  — 
forget  quickly. 

Yet  he  did  think. 

One  great,  vital  fact  stood  out  white-hot  above  all  other 
facts  in  his  consciousness  —  he  was  alive!  He  wasn't  out  of 
the  melee  yet.  But  to  date  he  was  alive !  A  year  had  passed 

—  gone  like  a  terrific  nightmare.   And  he  was  alive.   Alive, 
alive,  alive !     He  couldn't  get  over  that  stunning  realization. 

There  were  days  and  even  weeks  in  that  year  which  were 
blurred.  His  mind  had  been  so  filled  with  impressions  that 
it  had  absolutely  refused  to  absorb  any  more.  Oh,  how 
picayune  all  his  introspection,  his  love  affairs,  his  family 
troubles,  his  Golgotha  of  small-town  life  had  been  back 
home,  compared  with  life  stripped  stark  naked  as  he  had 
seen  it  out  here!  He  seemed  to  be  living  now  in  another 
incarnation.  He  was  not  —  he  couldn't  be  —  the  same  fellow 
who  had  once  lived  in  the  Pine  Street  house  with  Milly,  who 
had  read  poetry  with  old  Caleb  Gridley,  who  had  drummed 
the  trade  from  Wilkes-Barre  up  to  Syracuse  for  the  Thorne 
Mills,  selling  dozens  and  grosses  of  ladies'  and  misses'  "thirty- 
sixes"  and  "forty- fours"  and  "spring-needle  union  suits  with 
reenforced  seats." 

How  different  life  would  appear  when  he  got  back  —  if  he 
ever  did  get  back ! 

What  was  his  mother  doing  at  this  moment,  Edith  with 
her  increasing  family,  Ted  Thorne,  myself?  The  boy's 
mind  grew  sluggish;  vague  thoughts  trooped  helter-skelter 
across  the  filmy  playground  of  his  brain :  Main  Street,  Paris 

—  the  filite  Bakery  and  Lunch  Room  with  smoky  ham-and- 
eggs  frying  at  the  back  —  the  rumbling  roll  of  the  door  in 
the  box-shop  that  opened  out  upon  the  shipping  platform  — 
shaking  down  the  furnace  the  last  thing  before  going  to  bed 


4i8  THE  FOG 

in  the  Preston  Hill  home  —  Milly's  bake-bean-flavored  pan 
try  of  a  Sunday  morning  and  most  of  the  beans  burned  in 
the  pot  on  top  —  how  the  March  wind  washed  through  the 
bare  tree  limbs  the  night  he  had  sat  in  the  dark  and  caught 
Milly  with  Plumb  —  Bernie  Gridley's  colorless  face  bathed 
in  blue  cigarette  smoke  as  her  forked  eyes  impaled  him 
that  night  in  Chicago  —  a  girl  raised  just  above  him  in  a  hotel 
window,  a  girl  with  a  clear-cut  profile  and  calm  eyes  — 
queer,  indeed,  the  things  that  stick  in  a  man's  mind  across 
the  months  and  years! 

He  fell  asleep.    But  he  was  alive! 

He  was  headed  out  toward  Vladivostok  and  when  the  war 
was  ended,  he  would  go  back  to  —  what  ? 

His  disordered  imagination,  twisted  and  wracked  by  the 
horrors  he  had  witnessed,  bathed  him  in  icy  sweat  all  night. 

Milly  tied  hand  and  foot  to  a  rail  fence,  a  big  cavalry  of 
ficer  in  front  of  her  with  a  saber  —  little  Mary  crying  across 
a  vast  space,  tiny  hands  blood-smeared  —  his  father  crawling 
along  railroad  tracks  with  eyes  seared  out,  holding  to  the 
ties  in  hope  of  some  one  picking  him  up  —  his  mother  sitting 
in  the  midst  of  multitudinous  household  goods  and  wanting 
him  to  listen  while  she  told  him  what  the  Germans  had  done ! 
All  night  long !  —  horrible  specters !  handless,  headless !  Then 
along  toward  morning  the  girl  of  the  hotel  window,  the  girl 
of  the  calm  eyes,  leaning  out  of  that  window,  reaching  a 
hand  down  toward  him,  telling  him  not  to  mind  —  the  fellow 
who  had  been  her  escort  had  gone  —  she  was  not  his  wife ! 
She  had  never  been  his  wife!  Wouldn't  he  find  his  way 
in  at  the  door  and  finish  the  meal  with  her 

He  awoke  with  some  one's  hand  upcn  his  shoulder.  A 
bleary-eyed  face  was  close  to  a  candle  beside  the  bunk. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Forge,  old  man  —  what's  the  trouble? 
You've  been  groaning  horribly  the  last  five  hours.  It's  al 
most  more  than  a  fellow  can  stand,  to  hear  you." 

"It's  all  that  coffee  I  drank,"  apologized  Nat.  "I  shouldn't 
have  taken  so  much.  I'm  sorry!" 

But  it  was  not  the  coffee. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SUNSHINE   GLORIOUS 


But  Nathan  had  one  more  terrific  experience  to  suffer  be 
fore  he  was  finished  with  the  Russian  bedlam,  —  an  experi 
ence  and  an  aftermath  beside  which  all  that  has  gone  before 
—  everything!  —  pales  into  insignificance  and  becomes  as 
nothing.  And  like  most  stupendous  experiences  in  life,  it 
came  when  least  expected,  certainly  unannounced. 

Nathan  reached  that  great  tenth  day  of  October,   1918. 

"It  was  the  turning  point  —  the  hinge !  —  of  my  whole 
life,  Bill,"  he  has  said  to  me  since.  "I  wouldn't  have  missed 
it  for  a  million  dollars,  but  whether  I'd  take  a  million  dollars 
to  go  through  with  it  again  —  it's  a  question,  Bill  —  it's  a 
question !" 

ii 

At  the  Consulate  the  following  morning  he  met  Roach. 
The  young  courier  was  delighted  with  a  companion  the  bal 
ance  of  that  hectic  journey.  One  week  later  they  were  on 
their  way. 

Nathan  had  recuperated  quickly  during  that  week.  Plenty 
of  food,  plenty  of  soap  and  water,  the  chance  to  shave  every 
morning  —  simple  things  —  had  given  him  a  new  lease  on 
life. 

Nathan  had  changed,  anyway,  during  that  year  with  the 
Czechs.  Mental  troubles  had  stopped  bothering.  He  had 
far  more  to  worry  him  than  his  culture.  Despite  his  phys 
ical  hardships,  the  young  man  had  added  weight.  Hard, 
healthy  exercise  in  the  open,  soldier  fare,  rough  living,  had 
toughened  him.  He  was  a  stripling  no  longer.  He  had 
learned  to  walk  erectly.  His  shoulders  were  square,  almost 
burly.  And  his  face 


420  THE  FOG 

Though  Nathan  knew  it  not,  a  whole  life  epilogue  lay  upon 
his  features.  He  was  bronzed  to  copper  red  with  sunburn, 
wind-burn  and  snow-burn.  At  his  temples  was  a  faint  sprin 
kling  of  gray.  True,  as  Bernie  had  said,  there  was  no  woman 
in  his  life,  and  that  also  showed  upon  his  features  and  in 
his  strong,  gray  eyes.  But  Nathan  had  been  ,  through  "a 
thousand  measley  little  small-town  hells"  which  can  often 
take  more  from  a  man  than  a  few  big  hells.  He  had  lived 
above  them.  Then  had  come  the  few  big  hells  also,  —  that 
autumn,  winter  and  spring  at  Kolybelsk  after  the  flight  from 
Moscow.  He  had  come  through  all  that  too  —  and  lived. 
He  would  go  on  living.  He  had  damned  Russia  and  the  war 
a  hundred  times,  especially  when  poor  Wiley's  surprised 
face  came  back  to  him  with  a  body  suddenly  punctured  by 
bullets;  but  what  normal  man  without  a  heart  of  brass  had 
not  damned  the  war  after  seeing  men  die  horribly?  Still, 
that  had  not  shaken  Nathan's  faith  in  human  nature.  A 
peasant  army  gone  mad  was  no  criterion  of  the  entire  human 
race !  And  that  Nathan  had  not  lost  faith  in  human  nature 
showed  in  his  face  also.  It  was  growing  into  a  Lincolnesque 
face.  Self-control,  self-discipline,  infinite  patience,  the  capac 
ity  for  fathomless  tenderness.  When  I  looked  into  Nathan's 
features  a  year  later  and  compared  him  with  the  fellow  who 
had  bade  me  good-by  at  the  Paris  railroad  depot  that  sunny 
morning  when  old  Caleb  missed  him  by  an  hour,  frankly 
I  was  shocked.  But  it  was  a  thrilling  shock.  I  felt  a  choke 
in  my  throat.  Nathan's  face !  A  far,  far  cry  from  the  little, 
freckled-blotched,  snub-nosed  countenance  upturned  to  me 
that  day  when  I  belabored  a  barrel-stave  on  the  fence  boards 
in  the  yard  of  the  Foxboro  school.  All  that  Nathan  needed 
now  was  a  great  woman,  an  infinitely  tender  woman,  a 
woman  with  a  big  soul,  and  there  would  be  something  rather 
glorious  about  my  friend,  though  it  is  hard  to  say,  looking 
back  over  the  quite  prosaic  vicissitudes  of  his  life,  just 
wherein  and  why.  It  was  a  presentiment  lying  too  deep  for 
the  intellect.  It  belonged  in  the  realm  of  the  emotions. 

So  Nathan  started  out  of  Irkutsk  one  morning  with  Roach 
—  eastward,  eastward  —  toward  the  greatest  adventure  in 
his  life. 

The  country,  up  to  the  week  of  the  fifth,  had  been  riotous 
with  the  screaming  yellows  and  flaming  scarlets  of  autumn — 
not  unlike  New  England  —  not  unlike  Vermont.  Hour  after 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  421 

hour  as  the  dilapidated  train  crawled  infinitesimally  across 
moorlands  and  steppes,  through  mountain  denies,  along  val 
ley  bottoms,  around  the  edges  of  great  inland  lakes  —  always 
eastward,  eastward,  eastward  —  he  sat  in  the  door  of  the 
howling,  bumping,  empty  freight  car  and  drank  in  the  glory 
of  titanic  Siberia,  the  undiscovered  wonderland  of  the  planet. 

Vastness,  strength,  poetry,  he  saw  in  that  land  through 
which  he  traveled.  It  was  the  home  of  a  race  still  primi 
tive,  though  old  as  the  world,  with  deep  faith,  with  curiosity, 
with  many  passions,  with  suspicions,  with  fears,  with  heart 
ache,  —  striving  piteously  to  work  out  a  social  and  economic 
problem  as  far  above  their  grasp  as  God.  It  was  a  land  of 
brown  steppes,  blue  waters,  purple  mountains ;  that  barbaric, 
borderland  world  where  troglodytes  lived  with  large-bodied 
women  who  might  have  ridden  with  the  Valkyries  out  to 
meet  Briinhilde.  The  very  proximity  of  death  gave  outlines 
to  that  wonderful  land;  that  lucid  sadness  which  is  the  es 
sence  of  the  soul  of  Russia.  Deserts,  distances,  lisps  of 
forms  and  ideas,  the  powerful  simplicities  of  souls  already 
in  Infinity,  —  and  yet  too,  a  land  of  junk  and  chaos  almost 
crashed  into  wreckage  along  with  the  thing  that  man  called 
Civilization. 

Colors,  colors,  riotous  colors !  Its  yellows  were  great  tar- 
taric  life-motives,  thwarted  and  defiled;  its  blacks  were  ter 
rible  doubts,  hatreds,  abuses  and  cruelties ;  its  reds  were  the 
accouchement  of  a  great  people  where  a  nation's  natal  pains 
were  griping  amid  the  roar  of  war ;  its  blues  were  for  simple 
strengths  which  could  endure  all  and  still  survive,  and  loves 
which  could  never  quite  fade  from  life's  horizons.  Colors, 
colors,  riotous  colors !  And  Nathan  —  the  colorist,  the  emo 
tionalist,  the  mystic,  the  romancer  —  drank  them  in  deeply 
and  let  them  cleanse  him  from  the  Terror  through  which 
he  had  slipped.  No  —  life  could  never  be  small  and  petty 
and  landlocked  and  drab  again. 

It  was  time  for  snow  now,  yet  the  weather  had  remained 
steaming  warm.  Instead  of  snow  there  had  been  rain.  For 
hours  the  train  had  crawled  through  vast  infinities  of  de 
pressing  fog.  The  entire  day  of  the  ninth  the  car  doors  had 
been  closed  to  keep  out  the  dismal  mist  and  chill.  They  had 
no  fire.  They  could  only  sit  on  the  floor  of  that  rocking 
box-on-wheels  and  play  the  hours  away  with  a  deck  of  cards 
which  Roach  had  somehow  managed  to  keep  in  his  luggage. 


422  THE  FOG 

About  seven  o'clock  the  night  of  the  ninth  Roach  arose  and 
opened  the  door. 

''We're  going  through  a  lot  of  hills,"  he  declared.  "And 
my  God !  It's  dark  as  the  devil's  pocket !  I  never  saw  such 
fog.  You  can  almost  taste  it!" 

The  two  spread  their  blankets  on  the  cold,  hard  planking. 
They  lay  down,  automatics  within  easy  reach,  and  tried  to 
sleep.  It  was  torturous  business. 

"Well,  old  man,"  cried  Roach  in  grim  humor,  "if  we 
don't  live  to  see  morning,  here's  good-by !" 

They  had  employed  such  a  "Good  night"  every  evening 
since  the  fortunes  of  war  had  thrown  them  together.  For 
the  country  was  filled  with  bands  of  murderous  Bolsheviki, 
striving  to  break  through  the  Czech  guard  lines  and  cut  the 
railroad  at  a  vulnerable  point  in  order  to  maroon  enemy  forces 
farther  in-country. 

"Same  to  you  and  many  of  them !"  laughed  Nat.  And  he 
pulled  up  his  blanket  to  his  chin,  pillowed  his  arms  behind  his 
head  and  dozed  off  to  the  shrieking  grind  of  the  wheels. 

Outside  of  one  terrible  shriek  which  Roach  gave  three 
hours  later,  they  were  the  last  words  Nathan  ever  heard  him 
utter. 

My  friend  had  dozed  off  —  to  dream  as  usual  that  he  was 
back  in  Paris  —  in  the  box-shop  with  his  father  —  going 
home  to  Milly  and  the  Pine  Street  house  furnished  in  mid- 
Victorian  and  Larkin  Soap  premiums  —  brooding  over 
boyish  troubles,  —  always  introspecting  —  always  worry-rid 
den  —  when  in  his  dreams,  half-way  in  the  borderland  of 
slumber,  came  a  crash  as  though  all  hell  had  exploded  and 
blown  the  earth  to  shreds  in  his  face ! 


in 

The  crash  was  part  of  Nathan's  nightmare,  —  part  of  it 
until  he  felt  himself  rocking,  bumping,  knocking,  billowing, 
hurled  at  a  strange  tangent  he  could  not  comprehend. 

Then  came  another  crash,  more  horrible  than  before.  He 
was  falling,  —  down,  down,  down.  BUMP ! 

Roach  uttered  one  long-drawn,  grisly  cry.  A  car  beam 
had  crushed  his  legs.  When  some  ominous  ripping  sound 
followed,  a  portion  of  the  iron  underwork  broke  through 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  423 

the  timbers  where  he  lay  impaled,  crushing  his  skull  in  the 
inky  dark. 

For  an  instant  all  was  quiet,  —  the  ghastly  quiet  before 
pandemonium.  Then  from  up  front  started  a  gigantic  hiss 
ing  of  steam.  The  engine  boiler  blew  an  instant  later.  When 
the  roar  had  echoed  away  across  the  distance,  hoarse  voices 
were  calling,  a  staccato  tatting  began,  —  a  machine-gun  spit 
ting  death. 

Nathan  came  to  his  senses  and  tore  frantically  at  nail- 
jagged  sheathing  that  pinned  his  lower  limbs.  His  hat  was 
lost.  One  of  his  legs  was  shot  with  sudden  agony  where 
a  nail  had  spiked  it  to  the  bone. 

But  he  crawled  out.  Somehow  he  crawled  out.  The  leg 
was  not  broken.  He  looked  around. 

Through  black  fog  loomed  a  horrible  glare.  Sharp  tongues 
of  ruddy,  ominous  flame  shot  up,  forked,  ravenous.  The 
glare  grew  brighter.  It  disclosed  grotesque,  hysterical  fig 
ures  silhouetted  against  roaring  yellow.  In  the  wrecked 
cars,  imprisoned  men  were  bellowing  in  agony.  From  sur 
rounding  banks  of  murky  dark,  fiends  were  shooting  down 
others  as  they  crawled  from  wreckage  or  forced  twisted 
doors  open  and  leaped  down  the  embankment. 

The  wreckage  fired  terribly.  It  might  have  been  sprayed 
with  oil,  so  swiftly  did  those  tongues  of  liquid  flame  leap 
from  timber  to  timber.  And  through  the  hissing,  crackling, 
snapping,  roaring  tumult  which  obliterated  the  next  few 
minutes  came  sharp  rifle  fire  and  singing  death. 

It  was  massacre ! 

Nathan  could  not  grasp  where  he  was,  where  to  flee,  what 
to  do.  Fear-grazed,  he  stood  irresolute.  The  fire-painted 
fog  blanketed  everything. 

Then  from  the  mist-wall  a  short  distance  away  he  heard 
more  frenzied  shrieking  than  the  rest. 

" 'Americanski!  Americanski!"  The  attackers  had  recog 
nized  his  uniform. 

Nat  tried  to  run  forward.  He  slipped  and  fell.  The 
entire  Bolshevik  army  piled  immediately  on  his  back. 

Nathan  waited  for  the  impact  of  bullet  or  bayonet  stab 
to  finish  him.  His  terror  was  so  great  he  was  physically 
paralyzed.  The  fortunes  of  war !  The  end  had  come !  He 
was  interested  to  see  what  Death  would  be  like.  Let  it 
come  —  quickly. 


424  THE  FOG 

But  the  entire  Bolshevik  army  lifted  itself  from  his  back. 
He  was  yanked  to  his  feet.  In  front  of  him,  lighted  by  the 
wild,  barbaric  flames  was  a  huge,  bearded  man  in  a  high,  out 
landish,  lambskin  hat  pushed  over  one  ear.  He  jabbered  at 
Nathan  crazily. 

"N'panam'ayu!"  (I  don't  understand!)  cried  Nathan  fran 
tically. 

But  his  contention  had  small  effect  on  the  Russian.  Nathan 
protested  hysterically  that  he  did  not  understand. 

The  big  Bolshevik  grew  angrier  and  angrier.  Then  a 
tall,  lithe  figure,  girt  with  a  huge  cavalry  sword,  jammed  his 
way  forward.  He  looked  like  a  Cossack,  though  the  Cos 
sacks  were  considered  pro-Ally. 

This  man  took  note  of  Nathan's  uniform.  To  the  boy's 
stunned  astonishment  he  spoke  in  broken  Germanic  English. 

"You  are  American?" 

"Yes,"  cried  Nathan.  He  could  scarcely  make  himself 
heard  amid  the  increasing  tumult  all  around. 

"You  are  American  soldat — yist?" 

"I'm  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  man !" 

"Where   are    you    going?     You    help    Czecho-slovak  — 

yistf" 

"I  was  only  traveling  on  the  train  —  Petrograd  to  Amer 
ica!" 

The  panther-like  young  fellow  jabbered  to  the  man  in 
the  lambskin  hat.  A  dozen  others  tried  to  harangue  each 
other  at  once.  Nathan  looked  death  in  the  face.  A  dozen 
bayonets  were  ready  to  finish  him  without  further  ado,  for 
Nathan  heard  that  sickening  word  "shteek!"  Finally  the 
Cossack  prevailed. 

"You  go  with  us.  Do  not  run  away.  We  ask  you  ques 
tion  afterward!" 

A  dozen  maniacal  hands  gripped  him.  Down  the  incline 
on  the  south  side  of  the  horrible  furnace  he  was  hustled, 
out  of  range  of  the  bullets. 

The  bullet  fire  was  subsiding,  however.  The  flames  were 
roaring  in  triumph  over  the  long  line  of  splintered  cars  where 
a  few  luckless  human  beings  were  roasting  horribly. 

Nathan  was  half -dragged,  half -carried  to  the  bottom  of 
an  embankment.  There  were  hordes  of  stampeding  horses 
there.  One  had  a  bullet  through  its  nose  and  was  shrieking 
in  agony.  There  is  no  earthly  cry  like  the  shriek  of  a 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  425 

wounded  horse.  It  was  dispatched  with  a  shot  in  the  hea4 
and  broke  a  man's  leg  in  its  writhing. 

The  attacking  crowd  which  had  engineered  this  holocaust 
was  a  tattered,  unruly,  blood-crazed  mob. 

"You  climb  up!"  ordered  the  tall  Cossack  grimly.  He 
indicated  a  scrubby  pony  that  three  men  were  holding  by 
the  head. 

Nathan  had  no  choice.  He  was  living  by  minutes  now. 
The  Cossack  threw  his  pipe-stem  leg  over  another  pony. 
His  act  was  followed  by  a  dozen.  There  was  a  howling  argu 
ment  over  something.  Then  southward  from  the  roaring, 
roasting  horror,  serpentine  along  the  trackage,  a  cavalcade 
started  abruptly  down  into  deeper  southern  fog.  Nathan 
had  to  grip  the  high  Siberian  saddle  tightly  to  preserve  his 
balance.  It  was  like  riding  atop  a  moving  fence  post.  The 
Cossack  had  the  reins  of  the  pony's  bridle. 

Nathan  was  conscious  of  traveling  down  a  far,  far  slope. 
He  marveled  how  the  men  knew  their  way  in  that  fog. 
The  slope  seemed  miles  long  before  they  reached  the  valley 
bottom.  Then  he  realized  the  cavalcade  was  taking  its  course 
from  the  depression  in  the  hills.  But  the  horses  walked. 
The  hysteria  of  the  crime  which  had  been  consummated 
burned  itself  out. 

Several  horsemen  trotted  alongside  and  howled  questions 
at  Nat  in  their  native  tongue.  Over  and  over  the  young 
man  had  to  protest  he  did  not  understand.  Finally  when 
they  stopped  once  in  that  labyrinth  of  mist,  Nathan  demanded 
of  the  Cossack: 

"Where  are  you  taking  me?" 

"Beeg  commandant!     You  see!     Stop  talk!" 

"What  for?" 

"You  have  come  from  Petrograd!  To  answer  question! 
I  say  stop  talk!" 

"And  what  then?" 

"Ah!  We  see  how  good  you  answer  question!" 


rv 

Due  southward  they  bore  —  if  Nathan  kept  sense  of  direc 
tion.  It  was  uncanny  how  these  horses  found  their  foot 
ing  in  that  fog.  The  ride  became  a  nightmare  in  which 


426  THE  FOG 

huge  bearded  demons  rode  with  him.  Hour  after  hour  it 
seemed  to  continue.  Then  far  ahead,  lights  gleamed  fan 
tastic  through  the  mist.  They  were  approaching  a  settle 
ment,  back  from  the  railroad. 

Nathan  had  been  in  scores  of  such  lost  Siberian  villages. 
One  long,  wide,  muddy  street  of  log  huts  with  acres  of 
sapling- fenced  cattle  pens  behind :  they  were  all  alike.  Two 
big  beacons  were  afire  before  the  largest  house  in  the 
place,  half-way  up  a  slight  incline  on  the  right. 

"You  come!"  ordered  the  Cossack. 

Nathan  almost  fell  to  the  ground  when  first  his  weight 
bore  upon  his  stiffened  leg.  He  groaned  with  the  pain. 
But  he  was  immediately  grabbed  and  jostled  forward.  In 
behind  the  twisted  fence  he  was  hurried,  while  aroused 
villagers,  a  tatter dermalion  crew,  gathered  from  fifty  direc 
tions. 

The  room  into  which  he  was  pushed  was  low-studded  and 
rough-hewn.  Candle-lighted,  its  corners  and  furnishings 
were  mostly  in  shadow.  At  a  rough  plank  table  in  the 
center  sat  a  bear  of  a  man  in  a  great  ulster  with  a  fur  hat 
like  a  drum  major's.  He  had  immense  black  whiskers  —  in 
which  he  might  easily  have  lost  articles  of  small  compass 
such  as  stub  pencils,  cigar  holders,  toothpicks,  pipe-stems, 
and  never  found  them  again  —  and  those  whiskers  were 
finished  off  at  the  top  with  the  longest,  wildest,  most  won 
derful  pair  of  mustaches  that  Nathan  dreamed  could  ever 
adhere  to  a  male  countenance  and  allow  that  male  to  pre 
serve  any  semblance  of  Dignity.  But  there  was  not  an 
inkling  of  doubt  about  the  Dignity  of  this  bear-like  Com 
mandant.  It  was  immense,  and  the  whiskers  and  mustaches 
did  it.  He  took  great  pride  in  his  whiskers  and  mustaches. 
Undoubtedly  they  had  been  responsible  for  his  elevation 
to  Commandant.  A  man  with  such  stupendous  hirsute 
adornments  could  be  nothing  less.  And  in  further  proof 
that  he  was  a  truly  great  man,  across  and  about  both  breasts 
was  a  display  of  moth-eaten  medals  and  badges  that  made 
his  chest  resemble  the  souvenir  board  of  a  street  fakir  at 
an  Elks  Field  Day  or  Fireman's  Muster,  back  in  Vermont. 

A  half-dozen  of  the  bear's  "staff"  were  gathered  in  dis 
tressing  Dignity  also  about  the  table  as  Nat  was  brought 
forward.  They  too  were  high-hatted  and  bewhiskered, 
though  not  so  terrifically  as  the  Commandant.  There  was 


SUNSHINE  GLOklOUS  427 

but  one  set  of  such  whiskers  on  earth,  and  they  were  upon 
the  Commandant's  countenance.  One  man  had  a  big,  greasy 
book  open  before  him.  He  appeared  to  be  "clerk"  of  this 
Inquisition.  When  he  wrote  in  the  book,  he  put  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek  and  lowered  his  accipitral  nose  within 
four  inches  of  his  writing.  He  had  hands  like  boxing 
gloves.  The  panther-like  Cossack  continued  to  act  as  inter 
preter. 

"Now  —  you  tell  Commandant  where  you  go,"  he  ordered. 

"Moscow  to  Harbin,  then  to  America,"  declared  Nathan 
hoarsely.  The  stolid  ring  of  Tartar  faces  drew  close  to  the 
candle-light. 

"You  been  with  Czecho-slovak  —  yist?" 

"I  passed  through  their  lines,"  assented  the  Yankee. 

"Where  you  pass  through  lines?" 

"Ybargenosk !" 

"What  for  you  go  to  America?" 

"To  tell  my  people  the  truth  about  the  Bolsheviki,"  Nathan 
answered.  Not  to  humor  these  men  meant  swift  and  un 
speakable  death.  "The  Americanski  know  only  lies  about 
the  Bolsheviki,"  he  stumbled  onward,  hoping  against  hope 
to  make  friends.  "I  go  to  America  to  stop  the  lies.  It  will 
help  your  cause  much." 

All  present  seemed  to  be  impressed  when  this  was  in 
terpreted.  A  general  discussion  ensued,  principally  with 
hands. 

"We  wish  to  know  how  much  Czecho-slovak  at  Ybar 
genosk,"  the  Cossack  declared,  interpreting  the  Com 
mandant's  next  question. 

There  were  three  hundred,  a  pitiful  little  garrison,  at 
Ybargenosk. 

"Three  thousand !"  said  Nathan  promptly. 

At  once  any  good  will  which  he  might  have  manufac 
tured  by  his  references  to  America  and  his  mission  was  lost 
in  the  disfavor  which  this  announcement  received.  Impre 
cations  and  abuses  were  hurled  at  him  as  though  he  per 
sonally  were  responsible. 

"How  far  Czech's  line  go?"  was  the  next  query. 

"As  far  as  Chita,"  Nathan  responded.  "From  there  to 
Harbin  the  Japanese  are  in  control." 

They  questioned  Nat  about  Czech  equipment,  about  Czech 
plans,  about  Czech  supplies,  about  the  recent  passage  of. 


428  THE  FOG 

goods  trains,  about  conditions  in  Moscow,  about  a  rumor 
which  had  spread  over  mid-Siberia  that  a  medical  train  was 
headed  westward  loaded  with  Red  Cross  supplies.  Nathan 
answered  as  best  he  could.  But  he  was  distrusted.  Senti 
ment  curdled  against  him. 

One  man  wished  to  know  if  the  skies  were  blue  in 
America,  the  same  as  they  were  in  Russia.  Another  de 
clared  that  he  had  heard  that  all  horses  end  cows  in  America 
had  two  legs,  and  how  did  a  horse  or  cow  move  about  if 
it  only  had  two  legs? 

And  such  human  material  was  striving  to  found  a  new 
nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition 
that  all  men  are  created  equal! 

Rapidly  Nathan  lost  caste.  They  took  away  his  khaki 
coat  and  the  contents  of  his  pockets.  There  was  much  refer 
ence  to  the  notes  that  the  man  with  the  big  hands  had 
recorded  in  the  greasy  book.  Then  from  the  melee  of 
confusion  and  discussion,  Nat's  blood  began  to  curdle  as  he 
heard  the  general  word  "shteek"  on  all  sides.  ("Bayonet 
him!") 

The  tall  Cossack  seemed  to  be  defending  Nat.  The 
Cossack  had  to  give  it  up.  He  shrugged  his  narrow 
shoulders  and  stalked  out,  his  big  saber  rattling  noisily. 

With  a  blunt  wave  of  his  huge  arm,  the  Commandant 
arose  from  the  table.  He  gave  an  order  in  Russian  and  two 
men  stepped  forward.  After  a  fashion  they  saluted.  They 
were  sandy-complexioned  and  had  no  chins.  Another  order, 
with  a  jerk  of  a  big  thumb  toward  the  ashen-faced  Yankee. 
They  saluted  again. 

Nathan  was  seized  and  bundled  from  the  room.  The 
crowd  trailed  after.  The  flaming  knots  burned  higher  out 
side  the  door,  death  pylons  now. 

Into  the  yard  Nat  was  dragged  and  the  crowd  fell  back. 
They  formed  a  semicircle  for  the  execution.  One  of  the 
soldiers  drew  his  long  glistening  bayonet  from  a  loop  at 
his  left  hip.  He  clicked  it  upon  the  end  of  his  rifle.  Then 
he  jumped  the  gun  up  into  his  hands  and  steeled  himself 
for  the  messy  thing  he  had  been  ordered  to  do. 

But  Nathan  Forge  of  Paris,  Vermont,  U.S.A.  had  no 
intention  of  standing  there  and  being  stuck  like  an  animal 
in  an  abattoir.  His  body  stiffened.  Horror  maddened  him. 
The  only  weapons,  the  only  friends,  he  had  left  in  the 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  429 

world  were  the  two  gnarled  fists  that  Bernie  Gridley  had 
cauterized. 

Nathan's  gorge  rose.  He  leaped  like  a  cat.  His  right 
fist  smashed  straight  at  the  head  soldier's  lack  of  chin. 
The  blow  broke  his  jaw.  The  gun  dropped  from  his  hands, 
fell  sideways,  and  the  bayonet  stuck  a  bystander  in  the 
throat.  Nathan's  boot  then  came  up  and  stove  into  the  pit 
of  the  other  man'  abdomen.  The  man  doubled  like  a  jack- 
knife. 

At  this  sudden  display  of  agility  and  damage,  the  flabber 
gasted  spectators  shrank  back.  Nathan  crashed  another 
blow  at  the  gaping  features  of  a  lean  fellow  who  barred  his 
way  to  the  fence.  Over  the  fence  went  the  Yankee  and  into 
the  murk. 

And  bedlam  broke  loose  behind  him!  Hoarse  bellows 
roared  in  the  fog.  Shots  snapped.  A  group  of  horses  by 
the  gate  began  stampeding.  The  log  house  spilled  soldiers 
and  officers,  and  the  yard  bumbled  like  a  nest  of  yellow- 
jackets. 

Nathan  tripped  on  the  other  side  the  fence  and  went  down 
on  his  face.  He  cut  a  gash  across  his  forehead  that  for  the 
moment  blinded  him.  But  he  ran  —  ran  somehow  —  ran 
wildly. 

He  was  suddenly  thankful  for  the  fog.  It  enveloped  him. 
It  shut  off  pursuit. 

Down  the  hill  he  fled,  guiding  himself  by  weak,  nebulous 
window  lights  from  huts  on  either  hand.  He  knew  a  mob 
was  trailing  after.  Horses  were  coming.  Two  shots 
cracked  in  quick  succession.  The  boy  felt  a  deadly,  cruel 
kick  in  his  left  arm.  In  an  instant  the  arm  went  numb. 
Something  warm  and  sticky  dripped  from  his  fingers.  He 
had  been  shot.  The  arm  was  bleeding. 

Into  a  passageway  between  two  houses  he  dodged,  on  into 
cattle  runs  behind.  Again  he  was  living  by  moments.  He 
smashed  head-on  into  a  diminutive  cow.  Which  was  the 
most  terrified  will  never  be  known.  But  he  did  not  lose 
his  sense  of  direction.  Down  the  hill  the  road  by  which  they 
had  entered  the  settlement  turned  at  right  angles  north 
ward,  out  toward  that  great  defile  in  the  hills.  His  pursuers 
had  lost  him  in  the  fog.  tie  skirted  through  back  yards, 
climbed  endless  fences,  bumped  into  all  sorts  of  palings  and 
impedimenta.  But  he  reached  the  bottom  of  that  incline. 


430  THE  FOG 

There  were  hoarse  shoutings  all  about  him.  Several  more 
shots  were  fired  wildly.  A  group  of  breathless,  running 
men  passed  within  three  feet  of  where  he  crouched  in  the 
shadow  of  a  gate. 

The  place  swarmed  with  frustrated  Bolsheviks  who  had 
been  cheated  of  their  quarry,  outwitted  by  a  Yankee! 
Nathan  left  it  swarming.  He  got  onto  the  steppe's  road 
and  headed  off  northward  into  soggy,  inky  night.  And  fog ! 
That  fog! 

The  boy  had  a  blind  instinct  to  strike  back  toward  the 
railroad.  The  railroad  meant  a  frail  chance  for  stopping  a 
troop  train  and  rejoining  his  fellows.  Yet  hunting  the 
railroad  in  that  fog  was  like  groping  for  a  lost  love  in 
Abaddon. 

He  walked  into  a  post  and  had  the  breath  knocked  from 
him,  learning  that  he  had  not  yet  reached  the  edge  of  the 
village.  He  stumbled  over  old  boards,  half-buried  in  muck. 
After  that  he  groped  his  way  more  carefully  with  his  one 
good  arm. 

The  pursuers  gave  up  the  hunt  early.  It  was  nonsense, 
hunting  a  fugitive  in  such  a  fog.  Sounds  of  the  village 
grew  fainter  behind  the  groping,  stumbling,  tight-lipped 
Yankee.  A  vastness  as  of  infinity  between  the  planets 
enveloped  him.  There  were  no  stars  or  lights.  He  wore 
neither  hat  nor  coat  —  only  his  khaki  shirt  —  and  the  fog 
penetrated  to  his  marrow. 

He  had  found  the  road  out  of  town,  and  he  tried  to  keep 
the  road  out  of  town.  The  only  way  he  knew  that  he  was 
keeping  the  road  out  of  town  was  by  the  muck  in  which 
he  staggered  and  sloughed  his  way.  The  moment  he  found 
himself  walking  on  hard,  frost-nipped  grass,  he  returned  to 
the  slough. 

Foot  by  foot,  yard  by  yard,  rod  by  rod,  he  went  out  and 
on,  into  absolute  blackness,  not  daring  to  stop  an  instant, 
fearing  the  morning  might  find  the  fog  lifted  and  disclose 
him.  That  would  mean  recapture  and  a  consummation  of 
the  fate  he  had  dodged  that  night. 

His  face  became  splashed  with  blood  and  muck.  He 
could  not  tie  a  bandage  about  his  head,  first  because  he 
had  no  bandage,  second  because  his  left  arm  was  useless 
and  negligible  for  the  tying  of  anything.  He  did  not  have 
a  left  arm.  Only  a  stiff  Something  hitched  to  his  left 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  431 

shoulder.  Not  that  his  arm  had  been  shot  away.  The 
chance  bullet  had  struck  a  nerve  and  effected  temporary 
paralysis. 

On !     On !     On ! 

Ankles  were  wrenched  and  twisted.  Again  and  again 
he  fell  forward.  He  only  saved  his  face  by  plunging  his 
good  arm,  elbow  deep,  in  bog.  At  times  he  had  to  stop,  go 
back  and  picked  up  his  route  again. 

That  fog!  It  was  thick  like  cheese,  black  like  paint.  It 
shut  out  noises.  The  slough !  slough !  slough !  of  his  boots 
were  the  only  sounds  he  heard.  He  might  have  been  grop 
ing  across  a  world-wide  pit  of  the  damned.  Yet  he  had  to 
go  on.  He  must  go  on.  He  prayed  for  the  morning  and  yet 
he  feared  what  the  morning  might  disclose. 

He  lost  track  of  time.  He  could  not  recollect  how  long 
he  and  Roach  had  slept  before  that  murderous  crash. 
Roach !  Poor  Roach !  Then  it  must  have  taken  the  caval 
cade  an  hour  to  ride  down  that  long  defile  in  the  hills ;  how 
many  hours  after  that  to  reach  the  village,  he  had  no 
memory  or  conception.  He  had  been  before  the  Commandant 
another  half -hour.  After  a  time  he  was  obsessed  with  the 
notion  that  he  had  been  going  on,  hours  upon  hours,  himself. 
Morning  must  come  soon.  Or  wasn't  it  yet  midnight? 

Leg  movement  began  to  grow  mechanical.  He  counted 
his  progress  by  steps,  —  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six !  One, 
two,  three,  four,  five,  six!  He  felt  of  his  left  hand  and 
discovered  the  blood  had  caked  hard.  Then  the  bleeding 
must  have  stopped.  It  was  queer.  But  thank  God  for 
it,  nevertheless. 

On!  On!  On!  One,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six!  One, 
two,  three,  four,  five  six!  Lost  in  Siberia!  Lost  in  Siberia! 
One,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six!  —  One  —  two  —  three  — 
four  —  five  —  six ! 

He  grew  feverish.  It  was  almost  more  than  human 
flesh  and  blood  could  endure.  His  injured  leg  was  afire. 
Every  bend  of  his  knee  sent  whips  of  flame  up  and  down 
its  cords,  from  ankle  to  thigh,  from  thigh  to  ankle.  One, 
two,  three,  four,  five,  six!  Slough,  slough,  slough!  He 
grew  hysterical ;  he  began  talking  aloud.  Oh,  God,  keep  him 
from  weakening!  Give  him  the  strength  to  go  on! 

God! 

Into  his  mind  came  another  time  of  desperate  predica- 


432  THE  FOG 

ment  back  over  the  years,  —  a  night  when  two  terrified  little 
boys  squatted  in  wet  alders  and  prayed  the  Almighty  to 
save  them  from  the  terrible  retribution  of  kissing  a  little 
girl. 

God! 

Nathan  went  down  on  his  knees.  It  was  not  because 
he  intended  to  kneel  in  prayer.  It  was  because  he  stumbled 
and  could  not  rise  again. 

"Dear  God,"  he  cried  hoarsely,  wildly.    "Dear  God " 

In  the  awful  void,  no  seeming  contact  with  anything 
mundane  but  the  feel  of  mud  and  steppe  grass  beneath  his 
boots,  he  felt  suddenly  so  light-headed  that  he  wondered 
what  was  happening  to  him.  Was  he  dying? 

"Dear  God  —  Dear  God " 

He  fainted.     Or  rather,  he  collapsed. 


There  is  always  a  morning. 

Strange,  unreal  gray  permeated  the  void.  Rolling  on 
billows  of  nausea,  Nathan  recovered  groggy  senses.  He 
was  freezing  cold;  he  was  being  consumed  by  fire.  Where 
was  he?  His  mouth  was  dried  leather.  Where  was  he? 
He  had  no  eyes;  they  had  been  burned  out,  or  they  were 
in  the  process  of  burning  out  right  now.  Where  was 
he? 

He  moved  and  it  agonized  him.  He  uttered  a  piteous 
cry  for  no  one  to  hear.  He  fell  back.  He  moved  again. 
He  got  up  on  an  elbow,  —  the  length  of  an  arm.  He  fell 
back  again.  Where  was  he? 

It  came  to  him  where  he  was.  He  was  lost  in  Siberia. 
He  must  go  on. 

There  are  depths  of  endurance  in  the  human  spirit  which 
no  man  can  assay  until  he  has  a  last  great  need  for  taking 
their  fathoms. 

Nathan  got  up  —  reeling.    He  did  go  on. 

The  quickened  circulation  of  his  blood  caused  by  the 
exertion  warmed  his  stiffened  limbs  somewhat.  Joints  bent 
more  easily  with  use. 

The  events  of  the  past  night  finally  came  to  him  in  full 
terror.  He  remembered  he  might  yet  be  only  a  mile  or 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  433 

so  from  the  tatterdermalion  crew  in  that  horror-village. 
He  drove  himself  forward  faster. 

He  drank  mud  water,  foul  with  grit,  to  assuage  a  burning 
thirst. 

The  world  was  gray  now.  There  was  no  longer  need 
for  groping.  But  it  was  a  ghastly,  grisly  grayness.  At 
any  moment  phantoms  might  loom  in  the  mist.  There  was 
light  enough  to  examine  his  arm.  Mercifully  he  could  not 
see  how  bad  a  wound  the  bullet  had  made,  what  had  hap 
pened.  It  was  too  near  his  shoulder  in  the  back. 

"I've  got  to  go  on !     I  will  go  on !"  he  cried  indomitably. 

The  fog  showed  no  prospect  of  lifting.  It  was  still  a 
world  without  form  and  void.  Dimly  conscious  in  his  direc 
tion,  treading  now  on  the  firmer  ground  that  bordered  the 
steppe's  road,  Nathan  went  on  and  away  into  nothing,  noth 
ing!  Only  fog! 

Once  he  heard  a  horse  approaching,  slopping  through 
the  quag.  Frenziedly  he  left  the  road,  drew  into  the  deeper 
mist,  flattened  himself  to  earth.  Horse  and  rider  passed 
him  about  a  hundred  feet  to  the  east,  a  high-hatted  rider  on 
a  dirty,  creamy  pony.  Then  quiet  again  —  ethereal  quiet  — 
the  journey  —  on  and  on  —  and  on! 

The  fog  of  the  world  and  of  life  was  having  a  last  great 
rubble  with  Nathan. 

There  could  never  be  another  fog  like  the  fog  of  that 
night.  There  could  never  be  another  grayness  quite  like 
that  last  awful  morning. 

A  couple  of  hours  after  dawn  Nathan  began  drawing  on 
raw  nerve  to  make  that  journey.  He  had  no  prospect  of 
finding  food.  He  had  no  prospect  of  finding  any  one,  even 
if  he  made  the  railroad.  Trains  over  the  railroad  ran  days 
apart  now.  He  was  far  closer  to  death  than  he  suspected. 

But  the  blind  instinct  to  live,  to  win  an  objective,  drove 
him  onward.  And  the  road  and  the  hills  kept  his  footsteps 
true.  Hour  after  hour,  mile  after  mile,  —  still  he  staggered 
onward.  Little  six-inch  steps  at  times  now.  Fog!  Fog! 
Fog! 

Had  the  sun  risen  ?    Could  the  sun  be  shining  above  ? 

The  fog  was  luminous  —  different  somehow.  It  seemed  so. 

"It's  got  to  lift  sometime!"  he  cried  brokenly.  "The 
sun's  shining  somewhere.  The  sun  is  always  shining  some 
where.  I  must  find  it.  I  must !" 


434  THE  FOG 

How  long  he  had  been  traveling  since  he  awakened  on 
damp  ground  and  fought  himself  to  his  feet,  he  had  no  way 
of  telling.  Whether  the  sun  had  risen  and  was  shining 
brightly  above,  he  did  not  know.  How  close  or  how  far 
he  was  to  the  railroad  was  equally  vague.  But  Nathan, 
following  that  straight,  muddy,  northern  road,  came  at 
last  to  a  turn.  The  road  bore  off  at  right  angles  to  the 
eastward. 

He  stopped,  swaying  dizzily. 

"I  didn't  come  to  any  such  corner  last  night,"  he  cried. 
"I  know  I  didn't!  If  I'm  down  in  a  valley  —  in  a  defile  — 
somewhere  around  here  are  hills.  I'm  going  straight  north 
ward  and  see  if  I  can't  find  hills.  Then  I'll  climb  somehow 
to  the  top  and  try  and  get  my  direction  —  see  if  I  can  locate 
the  railroad." 

It  was  not  a  decision  to  be  taken  lightly.  So  long  as  he 
kept  to  the  road,  that  road  must  lead  somewhere.  If  he 
lost  that  road  by  wandering  away  into  the  hills,  he  might 
never  be  able  to  find  it  again.  Yet  could  he  always  follow 
it  through  lowlands,  always  stumble  and  stagger  onward 
down  in  fog?  He  had  to  make  that  decision.  And  he  did 
make  that  decision.  He  decided  to  climb  upward  on  to  the 
heights  and  trust  to  the  sunlight  above  to  set  him  aright. 

The  sunlight  above  to  set  him  aright! 

Anyhow,  that  climb  started.  For  he  found  a  hill  almost 
directly  ahead  of  that  abrupt  turn  in  the  road  to  the  east 
ward.  That  is  why  it  had  turned,  —  to  avoid  the  grade. 

It  might  not  have  been  a  serious  climb  for  a  normal  man. 
But  for  a  man  exhausted  and  broken  as  Nathan  was  ex 
hausted  and  broken,  it  was  Golgotha  in  earnest.  This  was 
its  only  redeeming  feature:  as  he  dragged  himself  up,  it 
became  quickly  evident  that  the  world  was  growing  brighter 
about  him. 

Yes,  somewhere  above  the  sun  was  shining,  shining 
gloriously ! 

Up,  up,  up!  On  hands  and  knees  now.  The  fog  was 
thinning.  He  knew,  because  somehow  the  air  felt  warmer 
in  those  moments  when  his  body  was  cold. 

Because  he  was  turned  face  downward,  crawling  tor 
tuously,  he  did  not  see  that  sun  when  first  it  was  discernible 
through  the  vapor. 

He  had  to  stop  many  times.     When  he  started  again  he 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  435 

wondered  in  the  back  of  his  splitting  head  and  grinding 
consciousness  where  he  was  rinding  the  energy  to  make 
that  ascent.  At  times  he  was  so  ill  with  vertigo  that  his 
stomach  was  racked;  perhaps  it  was  only  the  intuitive 
fear  of  falling  and  rolling  back  that  long  and  sharp  slope 
to  the  bottom  —  into  the  fog  again!  —  that  kept  him  con 
scious. 

He  was  clawing  upward  a  few  feet  now,  then  stopping 
half -hours,  it  seemed,  for  rest.  His  tongue  was  swollen. 
He  could  not  shut  his  eyes  for  the  agony.  He  tried  to 
swallow  and  his  throat  refused  to  function.  It  came  to  him 
that  in  those  self-commands  to  go  on,  the  voice  was  not 
his  own.  It  was  no  voice  at  all.  He  was  making  crazy, 
growling,  guttural  sounds. 

And  then — the  sun! 

Raising  his  eyes  after  one  of  his  pauses  for  rest,  hang 
ing  weirdly  above  him  he  beheld  a  ball  of  pale  lemon, 
lambent  in  the  heavens.  Was  it  the  sun?  Could  it  be  the 
sun? 

Of  course  it  was  the  sun !  Nathan  laughed  at  himself 
for  the  question.  He  did  not  realize  his  laugh  was  a  crazy 
cackle. 

Nathan  climbed  out  of  the  fog. 

He  emerged  from  the  fog-belt  in  the  space  of  a  hundred 
feet,  left  it  below  him  entirely. 

It  was  not  quite  the  top.     Not  yet ! 

But  when  he  had  climbed  out  of  that  fog-belt  into  the 
warm,  enervating  sunshine,  he  saw  the  top. 

Yes,  he  saw  it,  and  he  saw  something  else.  The  wounded, 
groping,  clawing,  climbing  man  raised  tortured  body  from 
above  the  last  mist-wreath,  a  hundred  feet  below  the  very 
summit  of  the  grade.  But  as  he  raised  blistered  eyes  toward 
that  top  —  what  was  it?  —  an  illusion?  It  must  be!  No! 
It  was  not  an  illusion ! 

There  on  the  peak,  swathed  in  the  Sunlight  Glorious, 
Nathan  saw  —  a  woman! 

Queenly  and  tall,  she  was,  Diana  of  the  Morning !  Calm 
eyes  were  gazing  afar  across  limitless  billows  of  night 
mist.  Sunlight  glinted  on  breeze-blown  tresses.  About  her 
arrow-straight  figure  floated  in  beautiful  folds  a  cape  of 
blue  with  a  scarlet  lining.  She  was  a  white  woman,  and 


436  THE  FOG 

blue  and  scarlet  cape  was  the  field  uniform  of  the  American 
Red  Cross,  the  Greatest  Mother  in  the  World! 

Nathan  was  hideous  with  grime  and  filth.  Blood  was 
caked  upon  him.  One  arm  hung  useless.  He  had  to  pull 
himself  that  last  hundred  feet  by  inches.  But  when  he 
knew  it  was  not  an  illusion,  not  a  mirage  of  glazed  eye 
balls  and  mangled  imagination,  he  uttered  a  cry,  a  piteous 
cry,  and  held  out  his  one  good  hand. 

He  held  out  his  one  good  hand  to  Woman  Beautiful  on 
the  Hill  Top  —  Woman  Beautiful  at  the  Summit  —  who 
seemed  waiting  there  for  him  to  come  up,  though  the  last 
hundred  feet  he  came  sightless  and  staggering. 

That  was  the  one  big  time  when  Nathan  held  out  his 
hand  in  agony  of  body  and  spirit  to  Womanhood  and 
Womanhood  responded  as  a  ministering  angel. 

Woman  Beautiful  started  at  the  cry,  turned  her  gaze 
down,  beheld  him.  Then 

Swiftly  she  started  down  the  grade  —  to  greet  him  — 
to  reach  him  —  to  give  him  the  final  help  he  needed  to 
realize  attainment  —  to  reach  the  pinnacle  whereon  is  Vic 
tory. 

Woman  Beautiful  came  down.  In  her  eyes  was  all 
Tenderness.  On  her  face  was  Sympathy  Infinite.  She 
uttered  a  little  cry  of  compassion.  She  caught  his  hand. 

"You  poor,  poor  fellow !"  were  the  words  that  Nathan 
heard.  "You're  hurt!  Let  me  help  you!" 

Regardless  of  his  broken  body,  no  woman  had  ever 
spoken  to  Nathan  in  that  tone  before.  Tears  flooded  across 
his  glazed  eyes  then.  Moisture  welled  in  his  throat.  He 
wanted  to  speak,  to  answer.  He  could  not. 

Let  her  help  him !  No  woman  had  ever  said  that  to  him, 
either. 

"Lean" on  me!"  came  the  invitation  from  her  wealth  of 
compassion  and  tenderness.  "You've  only  a  little  way  more 
to  go.  Make  a  little  more  effort.  Then  you  can  rest  — 
up  in  the  Sunlight!" 

He  could  rest  —  up  in  the  Sunlight ! 

The  third  miracle  happened  then.  The  broken  man  felt 
his  arm  being  lifted  across  a  woman's  shoulders.  And  sud 
denly  by  his  side  the  resilient,  supple  strength  of  a  woman 
sustained  him.  He  felt  a  woman's  effort  added  to  his  own. 
He  felt  her  almost  lift  him.  He  never  knew  that  a  woman 


SUNSHINE  GLORIOUS  437 

could  possess  such  strength.  She  spoke  with  compassion, 
she  asked  to  help  him,  she  placed  his  arm  across  her 
shoulder,  she  sustained  him,  she  added  her  effort  to  his 
own,  she  lifted  him,  she  gave  him  her  strength  —  all  she 
had  to  give,  all  that  he  needed ;  she  literally  bore  him  upward 
to  the  summit.  He  reached  the  Hill  Top. 

It  was  all  Sunlight. 

A  thousand  feet  away  was  the  railroad.  A  long  train 
of  a  dozen  white  cars  stood  there,  great  carmine  crosses 
emblazoned  upon  their  sides,  the  glory  insignia  of  the 
great  Red  Cross.  The  engine  had  been  detached.  Train 
crew  and  guard  of  soldiers  were  using  that  locomotive  to 
shunt  off  piles  of  charred  and  smoldering  wreckage  —  ta 
clear  the  track  —  that  the  Red  Cross  on  its  mission  of  mercy 
might  "carry  on." 

Into  the  last  car  broke  the  woman  in  blue  and  scarlet. 
She  interrupted  the  doctor  in  charge. 

"Come  quickly !"  she  cried.  "A  wounded  soldier !  I  went 
off  to  that  point  of  land  to  the  south  while  they  were  clear 
ing  the  track.  As  I  stood  here,  a  horribly  hurt  man  crawled 
up  the  slope  out  of  the  valley  fog.  He's  stretched  out  on 
the  ground  in  collapse.  Come  quickly !" 

A  stream  of  white-clad  figures  poured  from  the  coaches, 
across  the  level  plateau  to  the  edge  of  the  ravine.  Two 
young  surgeons  bore  a  stretcher. 

They  picked  up  Nathan  and  laid  him  upon  it.  It  was  the 
work  of  a  few  moments  to  bear  him  back  to  the  train. 

"An  American  soldier!  One  of  our  boys!"  cried  Doctor 
Cleeve.  "They  probably  attacked  the  train  last  night  and 
captured  him  and  he  escaped  from  them!" 

It  was  mid-afternoon  when  the  Red  Cross  train  was  able 
to  proceed  again,  into  the  deeper  heart  of  Siberia,  bearing 
Nathan  backward.  But  he  was  among  his  friends  —  his 
countrymen  —  people  of  his  blood  and  homeland. 

He  awoke  in  a  white-iron  berth,  gauze  bandages  about 
his  head,  his  left  arm  in  a  sling,  bound  tightly  against  his 
body.  It  was  night.  The  great  mercy-train  was  clicking 
steadily  westward. 

"Where  is  she?"  he  cried  wildly,  as  he  raised  himself 
on  his  good  elbow  and  addressed  the  young  doctor,  nodding 
by  the  window. 

"Where  is  who?" 


438  THE  FOG 

"The  woman  —  who  came  down  the  hill  —  the  one  who 
helped  me  to  the  top!" 

"She's  asleep !  It's  the  middle  of  the  night.  You've  been 
unconscious  and  in  delirium.  Feeling  better?" 

"Who  is  she?  Where  have  I  seen  her  before?  Or  was 
she  just  an  angel !  And  her  face  from  my  own  imagination  ?" 

"Miss  Theddon  found  you,  old  man.  She's  a  new  nurse, 
just  out  from  the  States.  Joined  us  from  Manila.  You're 
a  lucky  guy !" 

"Theddon?     Theddon?     What's  her   first  name?" 

"Madelaine,  I  think.     Madelaine  Theddon." 

"What  part  of  the  States  does  she  come  from?" 

"Somewhere  up  in  Massachusetts.  I  think  I  heard  her 
talking  with  Doctor  Cleeve  about  Springfield." 

"It  wasn't  illusion !"  cried  Nathan  then.  "It  was  my  girl 
of  the  Star !  —  My  girl  of  the  Window  —  out  here  —  away 
out  here  —  in  Siberia !  Oh,  my  God !" 

"You  know  her,  old  man?" 

"I  saw  her  face  once  in  a  star,"  affirmed  Nathan.  "I " 

Another  doctor  heard  Nathan's  wild  declamation  and 
entered  hastily. 

"Delirium!"  announced  the  first.  "He  thinks  he  knows 
Miss  Theddon.  Better  give  him  another  shot,  Jack.  He's 
pretty  near  done  for!" 

But  it  was  not  delirium.    How  could  they  understand? 


Nathan  had  been  too  toughened  by  eighteen  months  of 
soldiering  to  remain  long  indisposed.  What  he  wanted 
more  than  all  else  was  sleep,  —  hours  and  hours  of  sleep. 

The  man  never  would  have  become  so  exhausted  in  so 
short  a  time  as  a  night  and  a  morning  and  a  journey  through 
fifteen  miles  of  muddy  slough,  if  he  had  not  lost  far  more 
blood  from  the  wound  in  his  arm  than  he  realized,  and  if 
that  flight  had  not  been  made  in  pitchy  darkness  which 
turned  his  overwrought  emotions  and  racked  imagination 
inward  and  sapped  his  nerve  force  with  even  far  more 
deadly  effect  than  the  injury  to  his  shoulder.  Therefore, 
when  the  mud  and  blood  and  filth  had  been  washed  from 
his  face  and  body,  his  wounds  sterilized  and  bound,  and 
his  mind  fully  saturated  with  the  consciousness  that  he 
had  been  saved  and  the  whole  horror  was  a  thing  of  the 
past,  his  invalidism  was  short-lived. 

They  kept  him  under  opiates  the  first  day  and  night. 
The  second  morning  he  awoke,  raved  for  a  time,  was  made 
to  take  food,  then  went  back  to  sleep  again.  The  third 
morning  he  sat  up,  called  for  his  clothes  and  got  them. 
There  was  small  room  on  that  train  for  invalids  to  remain 
invalids  for  the  luxury  of  it.  His  clothes  had  been  cleaned 
in  the  time  intervening.  He  dressed  with  a  doctor's  help. 
But  he  felt  dizzy  after  breakfast  when  he  tried  to  smoke 
and  lay  down  on  his  berth  again.  He  must  have  fallen 
asleep,  for  when  he  awoke  it  was  high  noon  and  the  train 
had  stopped.  Far  out  on  the  expanse  of  hard  brown 
steppe,  it  had  turned  upon  a  siding  to  permit  an  eastern- 
bound  train  of  "empties"  to  clear. 

Nathan  arose  and  looked  out  of  the  window.  The  world 
was  surfeited  with  sunshine.  Never  had  there  been  such 
a  day.  The  small  white-enameled  compartment  in  which  his 


440  THE  FOG 

bunk  was  located  was  empty.  Off  across  the  prairie  he 
saw  doctors  and  nurses  strolling.  A  warning  whistle  would 
bring  them  back  in  time.  Beside,  they  could  see  the  western 
track  for  miles,  straight  to  the  far  horizon.  Nathan  sud 
denly  wanted  to  be  out  there  in  the  sunshine  too. 

He  discovered  that  his  leg,  where  the  jagged  nail  had 
penetrated,  had  been  cauterized  and  tightly  bandaged.  But 
it  gave  him  no  especial  distress.  The  cut  in  his  forehead, 
when  dried  gore  and  caked  muck  had  been  washed  away, 
had  turned  out  to  be  a  two-inch  gash  above  his  right  eye 
which  a  bit  of  adhesive  plaster  covered.  His  wounded  arm, 
in  which  the  feeling  had  begun  to  return  about  noon  of  the 
previous  day,  was  tightly  bound  against  his  body.  Thirty 
hours  of  sleep  had  brought  back  his  strength  and  rebuilt 
his  shattered  nerves.  Yes,  Nathan  suddenly  wanted  to 
be  out  there  in  the  sunshine  too.  There  were  several 
khaki  coats  on  the  bunk  above.  He  swung  one  around  and 
got  his  good  arm  into  its  right  sleeve.  He  pulled  it  as 
best  he  could  over  his  battered  shoulder  and  fastened  a 
couple  of  black-copper  buttons  at  the  throat.  An  officer's 
cap  hung  on  a  hook  in  the  passageway.  Nathan  went  out 
into  the  iron  vestibule  and  down  the  steps. 

He  had  not  seen  Madelaine  since  she  had  helped  him  to 
the  hill  top.  The  car  to  which  she  was  attached  was  far 
up  forward.  Nathan  had  been  hurriedly  carried  into  the 
next  to  the  last  coach.  He  wanted  to  find  Madelaine,  how 
ever,  and  thank  her.  But  most  of  all,  he  simply  wanted  to 
gaze  into  her  face,  to  see  "in  a  close-up"  his  Girl  of  the 
Window.  His  stunned  brain  had  not  quite  assimilated  yet 
that  he  had  found  her,  far  out  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe, 
deep  in  the  lands  of  the  Tartars. 

"What  the  devil  are  you  doing  out  here?"  demanded 
a  sharp  voice  behind  him.  Nathan  turned  to  behold  one 
of  the  surgeons. 

"Soaking  in  sunshine,"  was  his  simple  response. 

"You're  supposed  to  be  sick  —  for  another  day,  at  least." 

"Sick?  Hell!  I'm  all  right.  All  I  needed  was  sleep. 
And  I  guess  I  got  it." 

"But,  man,  you  may  take  cold  in  those  wounds." 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I'm  going  to  stay  in  there  and  be  fed 
beef  tea  while  the  rest  of  you  people  enjoy  yourselves  out 
side  on  a  day  like  this !" 


THE  AMETHYST  MOMENT  441 

"Were  you  on  that  smashed  train  we  had  to  clear  off 
the  track?" 

"Yes,"  said  Nathan.  Briefly  he  recounted  his  experience. 
Doctors  and  nurses  gathered  around  as  he  talked.  Made- 
laine  was  not  among  them. 

"Fortunes  of  war!"  observed  one  of  the  surgeons  philo 
sophically,  when  the  terse  recital  was  ended.  "Think  of  all 
the  poor  devils  who  have  failed  to  make  their  hill  tops  in 
time." 

"Can  I  ever  forgot  them?"  asked  Nathan  huskily.  "I 
wish  I  could!" 

ii 

His  stiffened  limbs  ached  for  action.  He  begged  a 
cigarette  and  started  northward  over  the  plain. 

The  air  was  balmy  with  a  lingering  suggestion  of  Indian 
Summer.  But  there  was  no  haze.  The  flatness  of  the  earth 
only  accentuated  the  vast  arch  of  the  sky.  That  sky  was 
sharp  cobalt.  The  earth  had  mellowed  to  a  golden  brown, 
awaiting  the  snow.  And  against  that  combination  of  cobalt 
and  golden  brown,  far  on  ahead,  Nathan  suddenly  saw  a 
furl  and  flash  of  deep  scarlet,  a  vivid  splash  of  color  as 
the  noon  breeze,  blowing  from  the  ends  of  the  world, 
caught  the  cape  of  a  lone  Red  Cross  nurse  and  rippled  it 
slightly  ahead  of  her. 

She  was  walking  pensively  as  Nathan  came  up.  She  was 
leaning  slightly  backward  against  the  breeze.  Her  loosened 
hair  was  blowing  about  her  temples  and  face.  In  the  crook 
of  her  right  wrist  she  carried  a  book,  her  forefinger  keep 
ing  a  place  in  the  pages.  Soul  of  the  sky  and  the  earth 
and  the  wind  and  the  distances,  she  seemed  somehow,  —  a 
picture  for  an  artist! 

She  paused  at  his  step  behind  her.  Nathan  paused  also. 
He  did  not  wish  to  frighten  her.  The  woman  turned. 
Slowly  they  inventoried  one  another,  their  eyes  met. 

Twenty-nine  years   were   focussed  in   that  moment. 

The  man  saw  his  Woman  of  Vague  Dreams  before  him 
in  reality.  She  was  straight  as  a  Norway  pine,  exquisitely 
turned  as  a  Venus  de  Medici,  dark  as  a  Castilian.  She 
was  fragile  of  ankle,  strong  of  thigh,  deep  of  breast,  soft 
of  shoulder. 


442  THE  FOG 

On  her  finely  chiseled  and  sensitive  features  lay  a  slight 
pallor.  Her  lips  were  half-parted..  Great  brown  eyes  were 
faintly  startled,  inquiring,  lucid  with  an  infinite  delicacy 
and  tenderness.  She  was  a  woman  with  a  big  soul!  It 
was  all  there,  on  her  features. 

Madelaine  beheld  a  man  ten  feet  from  her,  unlike  any 
man  she  had  ever  seen.  He  was  a  head  taller  than  herself, 
agile  of  carriage,  cordy  of  shoulder  and  bicep,  sure  of 
tread,  controlled  of  muscle  and  nerve.  His  features  were 
burned  to  the  hue  of  brick.  His  gray  eye  carried  as  true 
as  a  rifle  ball.  And  his  mouth !  —  His  lips  were  classic ; 
every  mean  and  petty  thing  he  had  risen  above,  every 
heckling  trial  he  had  met  with  infinite  patience,  every  hell 
he  had  groped  through  because  he  believed  that  to  go 
on  was  self -obligation  and  that  somewhere  above  a  sun 
must  be  shining  gloriously,  the  whole  long  chronicle  of 
what  he  had  lived  was  all  concentrated  in  two  cable  jaw 
muscles  and  the  manner  in  which  he  closed  his  lips. 

He  also  had  calm  eyes  —  now. 

His  strong,  virile  body,  war -hardened,  was  clad  in  a 
uniform  that  indicated  no  rubber-stamp  soldier.  His  khaki 
shirt  was  left  loosely  open  at  the  throat,  disclosing  a  chest 
as  tough  as  leather.  He  wore  his  cap  at  a  rakish,  he-man 
angle  and  his  forehead  wound  and  bungling  shoulder  only 
accentuated  his  virility  instead  of  making  him  clumsy. 

The  woman  slowly  viewed  his  face  and  his  frame.  And  a 
queer  thrill  shot  deep  and  true,  far  down  into  the  innermost 
reaches  of  her  being.  Here  was  a  MAN ! 

Two  pairs  of  calm  eyes  met  in  that  moment.  Face  to 
face,  eye  to  eye,  they  looked  upon  each  other  and  those 
glances  held.  Male  and  female,  worthy  of  each  other,  made 
for  each  other,  they  met  at  high  noon  under  an  infinite 
cobalt  sky  on  a  spot  as  level  and  far-flung  as  the  Table 
lands  of  Eternity.  And  all  around  and  about  them  was 
Sunshine.  It  had  to  be  in  the  sunshine,  that ! 


in 

The  woman  was  the  first  to  speak. 
"Why!     You're  the  soldier  who  climbed  toward  me  day 
before  yesterday,  out  of  the  fog." 


THE  AMETHYST  MOMENT  443 

Nathan's  voice  was  steady. 

"Out  of  the  Fog,  yes!"  he  replied.  "And  you  were  the 
Good  Angel  who  saw  me  trying  to  get  out  of  the  Fog  and 
came  down  and  helped  me  to  make  the  Top." 

"I  suppose  we  should  introduce  ourselves,  as  there's  no 
one  apparently  to  do  it  for  us.  I  am  Madelaine  Theddon 
from  Springfield,  Massachusetts." 

The  breeze  stopped  blowing  for  a  moment.  All  sounds 
softened  into  eternal  silence.  Even  the  sunlight  waited. 
Nathan  never  took  his  eyes  from  that  cameo  face. 

"Forge  is  my  name,  Miss  Theddon,"  he  said.  "Nathaniel 
Forge!  I'm  from  Vermont." 

Off  over  the  rim  of  the  world,  washed  by  the  crisp 
whitecaps  of  a  mazarine  sea,  once  was  a  coral  island  which 
no  man's  chart  has  ever  compassed.  There  had  never  been 
a  gray  day  upon  that  coral  island.  The  sunlight  started 
there.  Deep  in  its  heart  were  bowered  valleys  and  acres  of 
flowers,  and  in  the  vesper  hour  sweet  notes  came  down 
the  evening  silence,  played  upon  reeds.  It  was  the  island 
of  Arcadie.  And  far,  far  back  before  the  lid  of  Pandora's 
Box  was  opened,  loosing  its  swarm  of  griefs  and  troubles 
upon  the  world,  Everyman  dwelt  there  and  in  the  starlit 
dark  Someone  came  to  him,  Someone  who  was  part  of 
himself  —  and  covered  him  —  with  the  wealth  of  her 
hair. 

The  gods  were  jealous  of  those  who  lived  upon  that  coral 
island.  They  destroyed  it.  And  ever  since,  Everyman 
has  been  hunting,  hunting,  up  and  down  the  worlds,  for 
the  one  who  came  to  him  as  a  Whisper  and  a  bit  of  Incense, 
in  that  dark.  Sometimes  that  search  ends  beautifully. 
Nathan  was  not  so  far  wrong  in  his  youthful  poetry  after 
all. 

"Forge!"  cried  the   woman.     "Nathaniel   Forge!" 

"Yes,"  the  man  answered.  He  never  knew  why  she 
spoke  his  name  as  she  did.  He  only  knew  that,  gazing 
deep  into  her  face,  he  saw  the  blood  die  out  and  an  expres 
sion  come  as  though  she  would  cry  aloud.  He  knew  that 
she  dropped  the  book  and  half-raised  her  arms  toward 
him. 

A  man's  brain  may  play  queer  pranks  in  life's  Great 
Moments.  Came  to  Nathan  then  some  lines  he  had  written 
long  ago,  even  as  it  was  coming  to  the  woman,  intuitively, 


444  THE  FOG 

subconsciously,  that  both  of  them,  in  some  far,  previous 
incarnation  had  met  so,  had  stood  so,  had  spoken  so,  —  long 
before. 

".  .  .  the  toil  and  tears  we  may  know,  dear  heart, 

Must  some  day  reach  an  end; 
Through  miles  and  years  we  must  search  sometimes, 

Ten  thousand  for  one  friend. 
Yet  some  great  noon  in  the  sun-glare  bright, 

In  some  vast,  open  space, 
You'll  stand,  flesh-clothed,  with  your  arms  outstretched, 

And  triumph  on  your  face. 

"I  know  few  words  will  be  needed  then, 

Lament  nor  name  nor  plea, 
We'll  let  our  eyes  speak  the  message  sweet; 

'Grow  old  along  with  me!' 
The  soul  of  man  has  a  thousand  lives, 

Yet  Love  has  only  one, 
That  leaps  alive  to  the  Glory  Cry: 

'Dear  Heart,  the  trek  is  done !' " 

Nathan  had  builded  better  than  he  ever  knew.  It  was 
his !  —  and  hers !  —  that  noontime.  The  trek  was  done. 

Madelaine's  eyes  were  starry,  starry  as  they  had  never 
been  before  in  all  her  days.  This  copper-hued,  clear -eyed, 
lean-jawed,  firm-voiced  man  was  Nathaniel  Forge!  This 
was  the  one  who  had  written  a  little  poem  which  she  had 
folded  away  in  lavender  and  old  lace  and  placed  in  a  little 
casket  deep  beneath  her  Inner  Shrine,  turning  piteously 
from  the  poignant  fantasy  that  it  could  possibly  have  been 
meant  for  her. 

Romance?  What  was  Romance?  This  was  Romance! 
This  was  Romance  —  the  height  and  the  depth  and  the  width 
and  the  breadth  of  it  —  idealism  unfathomable  —  the  most 
beautiful  thing  in  the  world. 

On  a  thousand  nights  in  her  orphaned  heart  she  had 
wondered  what  he  could  be  like,  how  he  could  appear,  how 
his  voice  might  sound.  But  that  wonder  had  been  forcibly 
sent  away,  off  to  the  mystic  vales  behind  the  sunset  where 
all  our  little  unborn  wishes  go.  Kismet,  however,  could 
be  kind.  This  was  a  world  after  all  in  which  action  and 
reaction  could  be  equal.  There  were  still  rewards  and 
fairies.  The  mj»ri  of  her  little  heart-locked  romance  stood 


THE  AMETHYST  MOMENT  445 

before  her  in  the  flesh  at  last.  And  he  was  all  that  she 
had  ever  dreamed  a  man  could  be  and  more. 

Yes,  it  was  all  there,  —  all  there  on  his  face. 

"Let  us  walk  together,  you  and  I,"  said  Madelaine,  when 
her  heart  throbbed  again  and  the  great  cog-wheels  of  the 
universe  turned  once  more. 

But  in  the  woman's  suggestion  lay  a  far  deeper  sig 
nificance  than  Nathan  grasped  at  the  time. 


IV 

They  fell  into  step  and  moved  off,  side  by  side,  across 
the  stubble.  The  sunshine  sang  and  the  breezes  rioted. 
What  mattered  it  that  they  stood  in  a  land  of  blood  and 
junk  and  chaos,  with  war  roaring  across  the  horizons  and 
all  the  world  on  fire?  There  was  a  cobalt  sky  above  them 
and  the  world  stretched  true  into  the  western  Infinite.  It 
was  a  long  way  to  the  horizon,  a  very  long  way. 

"Miss  Theddon,"  said  Nathan,  "life  is  very  queer  at  times, 
isn't  it  —  in  some  of  its  coincidences  and  denouements,  I 
mean  ?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Madelaine,  scarcely  recognizing  her  own 
voice.  She  was  trying  to  credit  that  this  romantically  garbed, 
erect-figured,  firm-footed,  steady-voiced  man  by  her  side  was 
Nathaniel  Forge.  She  felt  rather  light-headed  about  it.  She 
did  not  note  just  where  they  were  walking.  She  did  not  care. 
There  was  a  sky  and  it  was  blue.  There  was  sunshine  and  it 
flooded  over  them.  There  was  a  horizon,  and  as  they  walked, 
it  moved  even  farther  away. 

"Because,  Miss  Theddon,  this  doesn't  happen  to  be  the 
first  time  I've  seen  you,  I  believe,  though  I  dare  say  you 
never  knew.  Some  day  I'd  like  to  tell  you.  Not  now.  Please 
don't  ask  it.  But  somehow  I  feel  I  know  you  very  well,  that 
I've  always  known  you."  He  laughed  lightly.  "After  all, 
Massachusetts  and  Vermont  are  very  close  together,  aren't 
they?" 

How  could  she  tell  him  ?  Could  she  tell  him  ?  She  heard 
herself  speaking,  as  though  she  were  a  third  person,  listening 
to  the  conversation. 

"And  I  feel  that  I  know  you  too  very  well  indeed.  Though 
I'm  not  yet  quite  over  the  shock  of  meeting  you,  away 


446  THE  FOG 

off  here  in  the  heart  of  Asia.  You  —  you  wrote  a  poem 
once " 

He  lost  a  step  in  his  abrupt  surprise.  Then  he  recovered 
himself. 

"While  I  was  seventeen  I  had  a  period  when  I  wrote  a  few 
rhymes,  yes,"  he  affirmed.  "Every  fellow  does,  I  fancy. 
Only  some  write  them  worse  than  others." 

"One  of  those  poems  happened  into  my  possession.  I 
found  it  in  a  newspaper.  It  —  it  —  interested  me.  I  kept  it. 
I  wondered  who  you  were  and  —  why  you  should  have  writ 
ten  such  a  poem." 

"Which  poem  was  it?    I  wrote  several." 

"I'll  tell  you  that  —  some  day  —  when  you  tell  me  where 
you  saw  me  before,"  she  answered.  It  was  sincerely  spoken, 
not  coquetry. 

"We  find  we  know  one  another  and  we  meet  out  here !  It 
is  almost  too  much  to  credit." 

On  the  mellow  brown  steppe  they  were  two  figures  sil 
houetted  against  the  sky,  a  bronzed  man  in  khaki  and  a 
beautiful  woman  in  blue  and  scarlet.  They  were  walking 
rather  close  together. 

In  the  far  distance  sounded  a  long-drawn  whistle  —  the 
east-bound  freight.  They  had  to  return.  But  their  Amethyst 
Moment  had  slipped  into  Memory! 


"Look  here,  Forge,"  cried  a  young  surgeon  angrily,  when 
he  came  through  the  train  a  quarter-hour  later,  "what  the 
devil  did  you  say  to  that  Theddon  girl  that  she  should  come 
back,  lock  herself  in  her  compartment  and  shed  tears  all 
over  the  place  ?  The  nurses  up  front  are  all  talking  about  it." 

"Say  to  her?  Tears?  Me?  Why,  I  didn't  say  anything 
to  her.  Is  she  weeping?" 

"I  said  so,  didn't  I?  What  the  devil's  happened,  anyhow? 
Have  you  ever  known  her  before?" 

"From  the  beginning  of  the  world,  old  man !" 

"You're  bughouse!"  snapped  the  doctor.  "You  haven't 
come  out  of  the  ether.  The  beginning  of  the  world !  Night 
before  last  you  were  seeing  stars.  You're  a  nut!  Jack, 
where's  that  morphine  ?  Give  this  coot  another  shot !" 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SYMPATHY 


Snow  began  covering  Siberia  east  of  Baikal.  It  seemed  as 
though  winter  arrived  in  a  night.  Still  there  were  many 
mornings  when  the  high,  cold  sunshine  glinted  in  a  trillion 
jewels  across  thin  snows  of  early  November  and  the  nipping 
air  was  like  wine,  piercing  a  world  suddenly  frozen  hard  as 
wood.  It  was  such  a  morning  when  the  great  white  train 
finally  moved  in  off  the  eastern  steppes  and  began  that  all- 
day  crawl  around  the  southern  and  western  shores  of  Baikal, 
up  toward  Irkutsk.  Sunshine,  sunshine!  Cobalt  blue  and 
sunshine!  If  Nathan  remembered  Japan  as  a  land  of  laugh 
ter,  he  remembered  Siberia  as  a  land  of  Sunlight  Glorious. 
The  night  in  black  fog  was  only  a  dream,  a  nightmare,  which 
had  slipped  in  between  some  flaming  sunset  and  a  singing 
sunrise.  And  the  sunshine  glinted  now  on  the  far-rolling 
whitecaps  of  Baikal  as  though  the  water  reached  up  and 
scooped  nets  of  it  from  the  air  and  rolled  it  over  into  liquid 
sacks  of  shimmering  green  until  that  imprisoned  sunshine 
burst  and  made  evanescent  foam  and  swashing  water  laugh 
ter,  icy  cold. 

The  train  was  headed  for  far  Western  Siberia,  in  toward 
the  Ural  Mountains  —  Ufa,  Samara  and  the  Volga  —  where 
a  thin  line  of  valiant,  ragged  Czechs  were  stemming  the 
Bolshevik  tide  eastward.  Yet  it  dropped  hospital  and  medical 
supplies  and  occasionally  a  surgeon,  as  it  went  along.  It 
would  stay  a  week  in  Irkutsk.  The  only  patients  it  contained 
to  date  were  unfortunates  who  had  been  picked  up  en  route, 
like  Nathan,  pro-Ally  soldat  who  had  escaped  from  Bolshevik 
camps  or  with  eyes  blinded  and  tongues  pulled  out  had  been 
turned  loose  in  great  Siberia  to  perish  in  agony  for  daring 
to  question  the  political  acumen  and  sociological  sagacity  of 
an  ex-anarchist  and  a  Bronx  dish-washer. 


448  THE  FOG 

Crowds  gathered  quickly  at  stations  where  the  train 
stopped,  —  stolid,  smoothly  boarded,  wooden  stations  resem 
bling  American  freight  houses  in  towns  of  ten  thousand 
inhabitants,  stations  with  queer,  Tartar  filigree  and  scroll 
work  decorating  the  side  gables,  and  all  painted  a  militant 
mustard  yellow.  Madelaine  beheld  what  Nathan  had  been 
familiar  with  for  over  a  year.  Flat-faced,  gray- whiskered 
peasants  in  lambskin  hats,  green  blouses,  knee-length  boots, 
who  might  have  stepped  from  the  pages  of  Tolstoi ;  tall, 
burly,  chinless  young  men  with  long  sandy  mustaches,  child 
like  blue  eyes,  massive  hands,  in  dark  green  military  caps, 
ragged  civilian  coats,  calves  protected  from  winter  cold  by 
spirals  of  coarse  juting;  big-bellied,  deep-chested  officials 
who  seemed  all  the  same  age  —  around  fifty  years  —  in 
arum-major  hats  of  black  lambskin  dented  at  rakish  angles, 
dressed  in  great  overcoats  that  forever  required  brushing,  and 
possessing  hands  that  always  needed  warming;  youths  with 
big  legs  and  small  ears,  wearing  cadet  caps,  blouses  buttoned 
at  the  left  shoulder,  belts  with  big  front  buckles  resembling 
closed  nickel  cigarette  cases,  long  trousers  like  cotton  overalls 
that  bagged  at  the  knees  and  flopped  about  each  ankle  like 
a  sailor's;  women  with  dough-like  faces,  no  breasts,  prom 
inent  abdomens  and  raw  hands,  who  wore  mannish  coats  and 
swathed  their  heads  in  brilliant  shawls  until  their  features 
could  hardly  be  discerned ;  Khirgese  desert  folk  in  suits  made 
from  undressed  skins;  shivering  Chinese  in  black  cambric, 
old  felt  hats  and  pigtails  who  tried  to  eke  out  a  living  selling 
corky  cabbages  piled  in  baskets  swung  at  opposite  ends  of  a 
five- foot  pole ;  ponderous  Mongolian  Tartars  in  mountainous 
ulsters  of  goatskin  and  no  hats,  with  their  cues  wound  atop 
their  heads  and  most  of  them  forever  accompanied  by  a  long 
cattle  whip ;  little  children  in  over-size  hats  and  caps,  braving 
the  killing  wind  in  cotton  clothing,  —  strange  indeed  was  the 
aggregation  which  gathered  miraculously  when  news  of  the 
great  " Americanski"  train  permeated  each  railroad  settle 
ment.  And  all  around  and  about  were  dogs,  hundreds  of 
dogs  —  half-starved,  ravenous,  snapping,  snarling,  wolfish, 
with  wild,  greenish  eyes  —  who  watched  for  scraps  of  gar 
bage  and  fought  over  them,  the  stronger  driving  off  the 
weaker  and  leaving  them  animated  creatures  of  mere  skin 
and  bone,  to  perish  of  slow  starvation. 

They  reached  Irkutsk  in  the  night.    Next  morning  Nathan 


SYMPATHY  449 

went  off  to  find  the  Consul  and  Hartshorn  and  report  his 
abortive  attempt  to  get  through  to  Harbin.  He  was  absent 
all  day.  It  began  to  snow  about  four  o'clock.  Hartshorn 
entered  the  office  car  with  a  scowl. 

"They're  holding  a  dance  over-town  to-night  because  of 
the  arrival  of  all  the  Red  Cross  girls,"  he  announced;  "a  last 
bust  before  they  go  in-country." 

"Well,"  demanded  Nathan,  "what  of  it?" 

"I'd  like  to  go  and  I  can't.  Somebody's  got  to  look  after 
these  cars  and  be  here  in  case  the  Czechs  want  anything." 

About  six  o'clock  Madelaine  accidentally  encountered 
Nathan  up  the  platform  of  the  great  marble  station. 

"I'm  not  going  to-night,"  he  said,  in  response  to  her 
question.  "I'm  looking  after  the  office  car  so  Hartshorn  can 
go.  The  poor  fellows  here  haven't  had  a  holiday  for  months, 
and  my  life  lately  has  been  pretty  much  all  holidays,  espe 
cially  —  the  past  week." 

"I  should  very  much  like  to  see  the  Red  Triangle  outfit," 
said  Madelaine. 

"And  I'd  like  you  to  meet  some  of  the  Czechs.  They're 
the  finest  chaps  on  earth!  They  call  us  Y.  men  the  'Little 
Uncles  from  America.' " 

"It  wouldn't  require  much  persuasion  to  make  me  forget 
they  were  giving  us  a  dance  to-night,"  said  Madelaine  softly. 


II 

The  Y.  cars  serving  the  Czechs  had  been  permanently 
shunted  off  on  a  western  spur,  a  mile  south  of  the  big  main 
station.  They  were  great  Manchurian  freight  cars,  sheathed 
inside  and  made  habitable  with  doors,  windows  and  stove 
pipe  chimneys.  All  of  the  service  and  recreational  parapher 
nalia  supplied  to  Red  Triangle  huts  in  France  was  also 
supplied  to  these  club  cars.  There  could  be  no  huts  in 
Siberia.  There  was  no  trench  fighting.  Armies  maneuvered 
too  swiftly,  principally  by  rail. 

Every  Czech  in  every  car  arose  as  Madelaine  passed 
through.  An  American  Red  Cross  nurse!  They  held  their 
caps  in  their  hands.  They  were  gentlemen,  every  man  of 
them,  —  college-bred  —  lawyers,  professors,  doctors,  artists, 
high-caste  tradesmen.  In  one  car  Madelaine  halted  in 


450  THE  FOG 

astonishment  before  a  painting  in  oils  done  upon  the  boards 
of  the  inside  wall  from  materials  which  came  from  God- 
knew-where.  It  was  "The  Burning  of  John  Huss,"  the  great 
Bohemian  patriot,  executed  with  a  craft  fitting  to  hang  in 
any  art  gallery.  The  graceful  young  officer  in  charge  spoke 
English.  He  laughed  depreciatingly. 

"Ah,  it  eese  nothing.  One  man,  he  paint  eet  because  he 
have  much  time  and  nothing  other  to  do." 

Madelaine  and  Nathan  came  finally  to  the  caboose  car, 
Hartshorn's  combination  office  and  living  quarters.  In  addi 
tion  to  the  sheet-iron  stove  and  shelf-table  were  a  desk,  an 
oil  lamp,  a  few  wooden  chairs.  Nathan  lighted  the  oil  lamp 
and  poked  the  fire,  throwing  in  several  new  billets  of  wood. 
It  was  then  about  half -past  eight. 

"Let's  sit  here  and  rest  and  —  talk,"  begged  Madelaine. 
"The  crowd  won't  return  until  midnight  or  after;  there's 
no  necessity  for  hurrying  back." 

Nathan  placed  a  chair  for  her  so  she  could  dry  her  damp 
footwear  and  skirts.  He  threw  off  his  coat,  for  it  was  bun 
gling  and  uncomfortable.  Madelaine  insisted  upon  it.  She 
insisted,  too,  that  he  smoke;  she  saw  the  stem  of  his  briar 
protruding  from  the  breast  pocket  of  his  shirt. 

"I  know  you  want  to  smoke,"  she  laughed.  "A  man  looks 
so  gloriously  comfortable  and  relaxed  when  he's  ruminating 
over  his  pipe." 

"I  can't  fill  it,"  returned  Nathan  lamely.  "Not  with  one 
hand.  It's  of  no  consequence." 

"I'll  fill  it  for  you,"  declared  the  girl.  It  was  not  an  offer. 
It  was  a  simple  statement. 

Nathan  surrendered  pipe  and  tobacco  tin  and  she  filled 
his  briar.  She  had  no  nonsense  about  it.  She  did  not  affect 
to  be  coy  or  awkward,  or  act  as  if  men  who  smoked  pipes 
were  some  type  of  monster  who  occasionally  devoured 
women  and  little  girls.  She  simply  filled  it  and  tamped  the 
tobacco  down  hard  and  that  was  the  beginning  and  end  of 
the  whole  matter.  Neither  did  she  act  as  though  either  pipe 
or  tobacco  should  be  handled  with  tongs.  She  might  have 
been  filling  men's  pipes  for  a  livelihood  since  her  school  days. 
And  when  she  handed  it  across,  and  the  pipe  was  drawing 
evenly,  she  made  him  pull  the  low  box  on  which  he  sat  over 
close  to  the  comfortable  stove  near  her  feet.  Then  as  Sigurd 
might  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  Briinhilde  "with  the  flames  all 


SYMPATHY  451 

around  them,  while  she  sang  him  the  sacred  runes,  of  war, 
of  pity,  of  safety,  of  thought  —  wise  words,  sweet  words, 
speech  of  great  game,"  so  Nathan  sat  before  Madelaine  for 
the  first  time  that  night  and  once  more  in  his  life  the  clocks 
of  time  went  unwound. 

Outside,  the  snow  was  now  falling  heavily,  smothering 
the  city,  burying  them  in.  It  hushed  all  the  sounds  of  the 
world.  No  wind  stirred.  The  flakes  were  great  polls  of 
wool  that  piled  quickly.  So  it  would  snow  for  a  week,  two 
weeks,  and  create  the  winter-bound  Siberia  of  old-time  story 
and  conception.  They  were  alone,  these  two,  in  the  heart  of 
great  Asia.  Alone  together!  Little  else  mattered!  With 
one  big  talon  hand  wrapped  about  the  briar,  a  strong  fore 
finger  pressing  into  its  bowl  from  time  to  time,  Nathan 
leaned  forward,  half  toward  Madelaine,  half  toward  the  little 
stove. 

They  sat  in  silence  for  several  minutes,  a  silence  so  great 
that  Nathan  could  hear  the  woman's  wrist  watch  ticking 
distinctly.  Finally  Madelaine  said: 

"You  and  I  have  an  acquaintance  in  common,  I  believe. 
Bernice  Gridley.  Isn't  that  so?" 

"You  know  —  Bernie  —  Gridley  ?"  Nathan  forgot  to 
smoke,  so  great  was  his  surprise. 

"We  attended  the  same  preparatory  school  at  Mount 
Hadley,  Massachusetts,  for  a  time." 

"Then  you  —  you  —  must  be  —  the  'Springfield  friend' 
with  whom  she  went  abroad.  That  is  —  I  mean  —  was  sup 
posed  to  go  abroad." 

It  was  Madelaine's  turn  to  be  startled. 

"You  know  —  about  Bernice?" 

"Her  father,  Caleb  Gridley,  is  one  of  the  best  friends  I've 
ever  had.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  old  Caleb  —  God  bless  him! 
—  I'm  afraid  I  wouldn't  have  done  much  with  my  rhymes  — 
or  anything.  He's  been  the  only  real  father  I've  ever 
known." 

"But  how  did  you  know  —  about  Bernice?" 

"Her  father  told  me  one  night.  I  forget  what  started  it. 
He  was  feeling  pretty  blue  over  it,  although  he  wouldn't  say 
much.  Bernie  and  I  were  rather  good  friends  —  once." 

"What  do  you  mean  about  Mr.  Gridley  being  the  only  real 
father  you've  ever  known?  Isn't  your  own  father  living?" 

Nathan  swallowed  with  difficulty. 


452  THE  FOG 

"It's  a  long  story  —  rather  sordid  —  too  long  for  me  to 
hope  to  explain." 

Madelaine  noted  the  choke  in  his  voice.  She  studied  his 
well-shaped  head  and  muscular,  capable  shoulders.  Some 
live  cinders  had  dropped  into  the  stove's  open  ashpan.  They 
still  burned.  Those  ruddy  flames  lighted  his  copper  coun 
tenance.  What  a  specimen  of  a  man  he  was! 

She  loved  him.    Already  she  loved  him.    Deeply. 

"Perhaps  I  understand  better  than  you  think,"  she  replied 
calmly.  "I  happened  to  be  in  Paris,  Vermont,  one  night. 
I  met  a  queer  old  philosopher  who  ran  the  livery  stable  — 
Pve  forgotten  his  name.  He  told  me  about  you  —  much!" 

"You've  been  in  Paris!" 

"I  remembered  —  a  little  poem  of  yours  I  had  saved  — 
had  first  appeared  in  a  Paris  paper.  I  stopped  off  there  —  to 
look  up  the  poet.  Naturally,  I  was  interested  to  see  what  he 
might  be  like.  —  It  was  a  rather  unfortunate  time.  You  had 
recently  suffered  a  serious  business  setback.  I  decided  to 
postpone  my  good  wishes  until  a  more  appropriate  occa 
sion." 

"What  night  was  it  ?  Tell  me  frankly.  Was  it  while  they 
had  me  —  locked  up?" 

He  was  so  candid  that  his  question  demanded  an  answer 
equally  candid. 

"Yes,"  she  replied.  Then  after  a  time  she  leaned  forward. 
"My  dear  boy,"  she  said  softly,  seriously,  "you've  kept  things 
inside  yourself,  repressed  and  unvoiced  so  long,  you've  done 
yourself  an  injury.  Why  not  tell  me  all  about  them  ?  Won't 
you  believe  I'd  like  to  be  your  friend?" 

"It's  a  long  story,"  he  repeated.  "It's  the  story  of  almost 
my  entire  life.  And  nobody  wants  to  hear  that!" 

"I  want  to  hear  'that.'  And  there  is  much  time  —  before 
midnight." 

Then,  as  New  England  would  express  it,  "one  word  led 
to  another",  and  before  many  minutes  had  passed  Madelaine 
Theddon  was  adroitly  drawing  from  Nathan  all  the  hot,  hard 
story  of  his  sordid,  perverted,  mediocre  past.  He  scarcely 
realized  the  girl  was  thus  intriguing  him.  A  great,  relieving 
freedom  lifted  him,  gaye  him  one  long,  wide-open  opportunity 
to  unburden  his  tired  heart.  At  times  his  voice  broke  with 
the  stress  of  it. 

He  began  where  all  good  stories  should  begin,  at  the  begin- 


SYMPATHY  453 

ning.  He  did  not  boast  and  he  did  not  depreciate.  He  took 
no  undue  credit  for  himself  and  he  made  no  maudlin,  insipid 
bid  for  compassion.  He  did  not  spare  himself  and  he  did 
not  spare  others.  He  hewed  a  straight,  simple,  naked  nar 
rative  of  fact  and  experience  —  and  let  the  chips  of  blame  or 
censure  clutter  where  and  whom  they  would. 

The  green  billets  burned  lazily  in  the  little  stove.  The 
smoke  from  Nathan's  briar  curled  upward  and  after  shaping 
into  sweeter  pictures  of  the  future  than  it  could  ever  make 
of  the  past,  it  wafted  out  a  slightly  lowered  window  at  the 
back. 

And  Madelaine  listened.  She  was  one  of  those  big  women 
whose  ability  to  listen  is  part  of  her  birthright  —  her  ma 
ternal  heritage.  When  Nathan  spoke  frankly  and  fearlessly 
of  his  experience  with  Carol,  and  why  the  Gardner  girl  had 
returned  to  Ohio,  she  interrupted  for  the  first  time. 

"But  couldn't  she  see  it  was  because  of  your  great,  clean 
love  for  her  that  you  couldn't  soil  that  love  with  anything 
sordid?  Wasn't  she  big  enough  to  realize  you  didn't  want 
your  idol  to  have  feet  of  clay  of  your  own  modeling?" 

Nathan  sighed  and  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  made  no 
comment. 

Then  he  told  of  his  life  with  Milly,  the  cheapness,  the 
shallowness,  the  depression  and  handicap  of  it.  He  told  of 
the  petty  bickerings  and  the  reasons  for  them;  the  hideous, 
mediocre,  unsatisfying  slovenliness  of  her  home  while  he 
hungered  bitterly  for  beautiful  things  without  knowing  how 
to  satisfy  that  hunger.  He  told  the  incident  of  the  repainted 
victrola  as  an  illustration  of  six  discouraging  years.  He 
could  afford  to  laugh  at  it  now.  He  did  laugh.  But  Made 
laine  did  not  laugh.  She  was  very  close  to  tears. 

When  he  came  to  the  incident  where  old  Caleb  had  brought 
the  pink  rosebuds  to  the  child's  funeral  and  then  read  Nathan 
the  Twenty-third  Psalm  in  the  hotel  afterward,  Madelaine 
laughed,  strange  as  the  statement  may  sound.  But  it  was 
not  in  mirth.  It  was  to  counteract  the  tears  which  had 
brimmed  over.  She  smeared  them  away  with  her  naked 
fingers,  not  bothering  to  draw  out  her  handkerchief. 

Nathan  told  of  his  business  struggle  with  his  father;  the 
neurotic  extravagances  of  his  mother;  the  death  of  Milly 
after  her  liaison  with  Plumb.  Then  he  came  to  that  night 
in  Chicago  when  he  had  visited  Bernie  and  had  acid  poured 


454  THE  FOG 

on  his  quivering  flesh  because  of  his  infirmities.  Made- 
laine  paled  a  moment.  Then  righteous  anger  flooded  her 
face. 

"And  Bernie  said  any  such  tiling?  Acted  in  any  such 
way?  Twitted  you  for  things  you  could  not  help?  I'd  like 
to  pull  her  ears!" 

No  woman  had  ever  declared  before  that  she  would  like 
to  pull  any  one's  ears  in  Nathan's  behalf.  It  was  a  new 
experience  for  the  lonely  man  and  it  overwhelmed  him. 
Especially  when  Madelaine  went  on: 

"I  don't  think  your  hands  are  homely.  I've  watched  your 
hands  ever  since  we  met.  I  think  they're  the  strongest,  most 
virile  hands  I've  ever  seen  upon  a  man.  If  I  were  in  deep 
trouble,  unable  to  protect  myself,  I  should  very  much  like 
to  have  hands  like  yours  clenched  into  pile-driver  fists,  strik 
ing  blows  in  my  behalf !  That  for  Bernie !  She's  absolutely 
heartless  and  a  little  vulgarian  herself,  beside.  I  think  she's 
horrid.  Oh,  you  poor  boy !  You  haven't  mentioned  a  single 
girl  or  woman  who's  come  into  your  life  or  gone  out  of  it 
who's  been  anything  but  a  heartache  and  a  handicap.  Hasn't 
there  been  one,  Nathan  —  not  one  ?"  It  was  the  first  time  she 
had  called  him  Nathan.  But  it  was  spoken  too  naturally  to 
be  crude  or  forward. 

"I've  told  you  the  whole  story,"  said  the  man  simply, 
thickly. 

He  put  out  his  hand  in  a  gesture,  that  old,  old  habitual 
gropirvg  motion,  as  though  feeling  for  some  one  or  something 
by  his  side.  But  now,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  that  hand 
did  not  grope  fruitlessly.  It  grasped  a  woman's  hand,  soft, 
strong,  human,  electric  in  that  contact! 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  cried,  startled. 

"There's  no  need  for  begging  my  pardon,  dear  boy.  Some 
how  I  feel  you  and  I  are  going  to  be  rather  good  friends. 
Some  other  night  I'll  return  your  confidence  by  telling  you 
my  story.  But  to-night  belongs  to  you."  She  waited  a 
moment  and  asked : 

"And  you  never  did  any  more  with  your  talent  for  writing 
after  your  father  stopped  you  ?" 

"I  couldn't.  I  never  had  the  heart.  Mr.  Hod,  editor  of 
the  local  paper,  hurt  my  feelings  one  night  by  telling  me  he 
couldn't  print  any  more  of  my  rhymes  until  I'd  stopped  a 
certain  wail  and  —  and  —  well  —  he  said  I  ought  to  sing! 


SYMPATHY  455 

But  I  couldn't  sing.  There  was  no  song  in  my  heart.  I 
gave  up  the  poetry  nonsense  for  good." 

"No !  Not  for  good.  You  will  write  again,  finer  things. 
You  will  learn  to  sing.  I  feel  certain  of  it;  you  will  learn 
to  sing !" 

Nathan  laid  his  pipe  aside  and  sat  with  his  big  talon  claws 
at  his  right  temple  to  hide  the  emotions  playing  over  his  face. 
As  he  seemed  disposed  to  silence,  Madelaine  continued: 

"It's  almost  too  much  to  understand,  dear  boy  —  how 
you've  stood  out  true  to  yourself  and  your  ideals  against  such 
a  background.  Most  boys  would  have  succumbed.  But  you 
kept  the  faith  with  yourself.  That  was  glorious.  Such  a 
constancy  makes  me  want  to  sing.  There  are  so  few  who 
keep  the  faith  and  go  on,  plow  on  —  fight  on !  —  through 
everything !" 

"I  haven't  done  anything  yet,"  was  Nathan's  answer,  "not 
anything  that  really  counts.  I've  felt  as  though  I  were  wait 
ing  to  get  my  fundamentals  straight,  my  feet  on  firm  ground. 
Then  I'd  really  go  on.  Then  I'd  really  plow  ahead.  Then 
I'd  fight  in  earnest !  When  I've  won,  maybe  I'll  sing  again. 
Yes  —  perhaps !" 

The  heart  cry  beneath  his  brave  optimism  and  blind  faith 
in  the  Ultimate  Good  was  not  lost  on  the  girl.  Lost  on  her  ? 
It  surcharged  her,  overpowered  her,  surfeited  through  her 
and  under  her  and  about  her  till  her  calm  eyes  glowed  starry 
again.  It  was  like  him.  He  would  say  it.  She  knew  it 
years  before  —  expected  it. 

And  Bernie  had  made  her  believe  that  this  man  was  a 
provincial,  a  "hick,"  impossible!  Poor  Bernie!  She  had 
wanted  a  man  who  could  wear  a  monocle  without  looking 
silly  or  lead  a  cotillion.  And  he  was  so  big  that  little  tinsel- 
worshiping  Bernie  couldn't  see  him.  So  she  struck  him, 
scarred  him,  wounded  him  without  knowing,  discounting  all 
Gentlewomen  by  her  narrowness. 

What  this  man  needed  was  simple,  pitifully  simple.  He 
needed  some  one  in  his  life  with  the  capacity  to  love  greatly. 
All  else  would  follow  as  a  matter*  of  normal  denouement. 

"Dear  boy,"  she  said  huskily,  "relax!  Don't  worry  any 
longer.  Let  all  the  past  and  pressure  ease  away.  Let's  even 
forget  that  you're  a  man  and  I'm  a  woman.  Let's  see  if  we 
can't  just  be  good  friends  for  a  time  —  and  help  each  other. 
You  have  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  nothing  to  hide,  nothing 


456  THE  FOG 

to  worry  over,  nothing  to  hold  you  or  handicap  you  any 
more.  You  have  courage.  You  have  strength.  You  have 
inherent  ability.  You  have  hunger  for  beauty  and  divine 
discontent  which  the  world  needs  more  of.  You  have  that 
great,  indefinable,  invaluable  thing  which  the  world  calls 
Personality  —  your  greatest  asset !  All  life  lies  ahead  of  you. 
It's  flooded  with  color  and  sunshine.  And  you're  'leaping  as 
a  strong  man  to  run  a  race.'  Wonderful !  Start  that  race ! 
Start  for  the  Higher  Hill  Top.  You  can  do  it.  All  you 
need  is  some  one  to  believe  in  you.  Well,  maybe  there  are 
far  more  people  believing  in  you  than  you've  ever  dreamed. 
Keep  the  faith  with  them,  even  as  you've  kept  it  so  far  with 
yourself.  Be  true  to  your  high  calling  wherewith  you  were 
called.  Everything  which  has  gone  before  has  been  Educa 
tion.  You  have  reached  Commencement  now.  Ahead  lies 
the  world  —  the  Battlefield!  Go  in  with  your  Strongheart 
singing.  Oh,  dear  boy,  you  deserve  it  so!  I  know  you 
deserve  it  —  the  spoil  —  and  the  Hill  Top !" 

"God !"  cried  Nathan.  He  spoke  the  holy  word  in  a  way 
that  kept  it  holy.  A  woman  telling  him  this! 

There  was  a  pain  like  a  knife-thrust  in  the  back  of  his 
throat.  He  sat  like  a  man  turned  to  stone,  scarcely  daring 
to  move.  But  he  did  move.  He  turned  his  face  and  looked 
up  into  —  calm  eyes.  Calm  eyes  ?  But  starry  eyes  too.  They 
could  be  both.  Verily  they  could  be  both. 

With  the  self-assurance  of  the  wise  nurse  —  the  woman  of 
medicine  perhaps  at  the  moment  —  who  knew  what  her  pa 
tient  needed  more  than  all  else  for  swift  recovery  —  Made- 
laine  gently  drew  Nathan  toward  her.  She  opened  her  lap. 

Nathan's  face  went  down  into  that  lap.  That  strong  face 
was  awash  with  hot,  hard,  terrible  man-tears,  though  all  the 
girl  saw  was  a  slight,  intermittent,  noiseless  contraction  of 
his  broad  shoulders. 

But  his  one  good  talon  hand  stole  out  —  halfway  around 
her  waist.  A  grip  of  iron! 

It  was  the  end  of  the  trek  for  Nathan.  In  that  simple 
privilege,  that  soft  lap,  those  cool,  gentle  hands  that  stroked 
his  hair,  the  soothing  touch  on  his  bowed  back,  the  whispered 
words  of  comfort  and  incentive,  the  lad  came  to  know  at 
last  the  great,  indefinable,  unfathomable  solace  of  a  loving 
woman's  ministering  tenderness.  He  did  not  want  a  mate  — 
not  then.  -He  wanted  only  a  mother.  And  he  got  a  mother. 


SYMPATHY  457 

He  got  a  mother-spirit  glorious.  Richly  it  was  his,  for  the 
taking;  how  richly  he  never  dreamed  at  the  time.  There 
was  no  less  respect  nor  mate-love  for  Nathan  on  the  girl's 
part  in  that  moment,  because  he  wanted  the  mother  in  her. 
If  he  had  not  wanted  it,  she  would  have  been  disappointed. 
Other  things  would  come  afterward  —  perhaps  —  after  he 
had  found  himself,  satiated  his  starved,  emaciated  soul  with 
her  gentle  sympathy  and  wisdom  of  his  need. 

It  was  a  strange  scene  to  occur  far  in  the  empire  of  the 
ill-fated  Romanoffs.  New  England  was  twelve  thousand 
miles  removed  at  that  moment.  And  yet  at  the  ends  of  the 
earth  these  two  who  needed  each  other  so  greatly  had  found 
Arcadie.  And  all  was  well! 

Heavier  and  thicker  fell  the  snow  outside.  All  sounds 
were  muffled.  The  world  was  shut  out.  The  odorous  oil 
lamp  sputtered  fussily  —  a  perturbed  chaperone.  Pleasant 
crackling  of  flame  leaped  now  and  then  in  the  little  stove. 
Yet  the  war  had  been  fought  for  this  moment.  Years  before, 
this  tiny  car  had  left  the  Moscow  shops  for  this  moment. 
It  had  been  drawn  to  Irkutsk  and  left  precisely  here  for  this 
moment.  All  things  on  earth  had  moved  forward  and  existed 
down  to  and  for  this  moment.  And  Nathan  felt  that  what 
ever  happened  now,  life  from  this  moment  would  never  be 
the  same  again  —  not  quite  the  same. 

In  his  life  there  was  now  a  Woman! 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES 


It  was  cherry-blossom  time  in  Japan. 

Not  only  had  the  war  ended  in  precisely  the  way  the  war 
should  end,  but  Nathan  and  Madelaine  had  lived  through 
that  horrible  winter  of  1918-1919  in  the  typhus  pest  house 
that  was  Siberia  and  come  through  unscathed. 

It  had  been  an  overwhelming  revelation  to  Nathan  of  the 
woman  he  was  growing  to  love  with  all  the  untwisted,  un 
leashed,  latent  forces  that  were  best  within  him  during  the 
horror  days  of  that  winter.  Cool,  poised,  positive,  Madelaine 
had  never  flinched,  never  complained,  never  shirked  the  most 
terrible  and  revolting  of  situations.  For  two  months  she  had 
lain  down  to  sleep  each  night  in  a  medical  train  side-tracked 
but  fifty  feet  from  carloads  of  frozen  corpses  piled  like  billets 
of  wood  on  freight  trains  in  the  forty-below-zero  weather, 
waiting  wholesale  interment  far  outside  the  city  in  the  spring. 

Nathan  had  been  obliged  to  leave  her  in  January.  The 
central  Siberian  Government  at  Omsk  had  fallen.  The 
Czechs  were  departing  for  home.  Steadily  and  deadly,  the 
bloody  hand  of  the  Lenine  Government  was  reaching  out  for 
crazed  jurisdiction  over  all  the  Russias.  Nathan  made  the 
long  trip  out  to  Vladivostok  and  remained  there  helping  to 
wind  up  the  post-war  activities  of  the  Red  Triangle.  Then 
he  went  down  to  Japan.  From  January  to  the  last  of  April 
he  did  not  hear  from  the  girl,  and  there  were  nights  when 
fear  that  she  had  succumbed  to  the  typhus  tortured  him  so 
that  the  furrows  in  his  cheeks  and  forehead  were  like  saber 
scars. 

But  the  nightmare  ended.  He  had  gone  down  to  Tsuruga 
to  meet  her.  A  typhoon  had  churned  the  Japan  Sea  to  a  two- 
day  fury.  She  had  been  ill.  With  a  stab  of  compassion 
Nathan  beheld  how  weak  and  spent  she  was.  They  dined  in 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  459 

the  little  European  restaurant  on  the  second  floor  of  the 
ticket  building  at  the  length  of  the  wharf. 

"And  you  succeeded  in  getting  sailings?"  asked  Made- 
laine. 

"On  the  Siberia  Maru  for  the  twenty-first.  We've  almost 
ten  days  to  rest  and  look  around  Japan.  I'm  sorry  you  look 
so  tired.  You  need  the  holiday !" 

"How  glorious  it  will  be  to  get  back  to  God's  country," 
the  girl  returned,  "where  there's  law  and  order  and  clean 
liness  and  decency.  Where  you  can  address  a  stranger  on 
the  street,"  she  laughed,  "and  have  him  understand  you  at 
once !" 

After  lunch  they  had  taken  kurumas  across  Tsuruga  City 
to  the  station  where  the  train  was  being  made  up  for  Yoko 
hama.  Gradually  Madelaine  recovered  her  buoyancy  of 
heart,  shutting  away  thought  of  the  Siberian  horror  which 
no  panacea  in  the  world  but  time  could  cure.  In  fact,  there 
were  periods  in  the  reaction  when  she  was  almost  childish  in 
her  effort  to  live  now  only  for  the  present  and  the  future. 
All  that  day  they  had  followed  the  great  northern  sweep  of 
the  Inland  Sea  whose  colors  and  vistas  were  like  a  painting 
on  a  Japanese  screen.  They  had  reached  Yokohama  at  seven 
o'clock. 

They  were  like  lovers  on  their  honeymoon  already.  They 
changed  into  civilian  clothes.  In  the  next  few  days  they 
visited  Tokio,  Nikko,  Fujiyama,  the  Great  Buddha  and 
Torii  at  Kamakura. 

It  was  cherry-blossom  time  now  in  Japan.  And  in  cherry- 
blossom  time  in  Japan  came  that  night  when  Nathan  asked 
the  Girl-Without-a-Name  to  take  his  own  and  be  his  wife. 


ii 

He  had  not  meant  to  ask  her  to  be  his  wife,  not  then.  But 
the  night  before  they  sailed  he  had  gone  with  her  on  a  last 
walk  about  Yokohama,  their  final  contact  with  the  quaint, 
droll,  beautiful  empire  of  cloisonne,  and  iris,  of  weird  dis 
tances  and  romantic  shrines,  of  —  well,  just  Japan. 

It  was  a  moonlit,  lazy-warm  May  evening.  They  sank 
down  to  rest  finally  in  the  little  park  opposite  the  Interna 
tional  Y.  M.  C.  A.  The  great  treaty  port  was  hushed,  that 


460  THE  FOG 

fantastic,  pregnant,  unreal  hush  which  permeates  all  Nip 
ponese  cities  by  night,  even  though  they  know  little  clash  of 
traffic  by  day.  The  hour  was  late.  The  park  was  deserted. 
Street  lamps  had  been  extinguished;  the  moonlight  made 
them  superfluous.  The  exotic  shrubbery,  the  great  yellow 
moon  peeping  over  the  top  of  a  gigantic  pepper-tree,  the 
sharp,  intermittent  cleek  of  the  cicadas  and  other  night  insects 
singing  out  of  tune  around  them,  now  and  then  the  light  of 
a  pink-paper  lantern  bobbing  along  on  the  shafts  of  a  distant 
riksha  turned  that  park  into  a  Garden  of  Dreams. 

Madelaine  was  clothed  in  a  white  frock,  white  pumps ;  she 
carried  a  white  parasol  splashed  over  with  quaint  figures  in 
pink.  Nathan  wore  pongee  and  a  Panama.  They  had  fallen 
into  talk  about  the  future;  what  each  expected  to  do  when 
they  reached  home.  They  sank  down  upon  a  wooden  bench 
just  off  the  main  pathway  and  Nathan  drew  aimless  marks 
in  the  powdered  trap-rock  with  his  stick. 

"I  suppose  I  should  go  on  with  my  medical  studies," 
Madelaine  observed.  "But  somehow  —  oh,  dear !  —  they 
seem  so  colorless  and  prosaic  now,  after  what  has  happened 
in  Siberia.  I  feel  I  have  paid  my  debt  there.  Oh,  laddie,  my 
whole  life  has  changed  so!  Things  that  I  thought  so  great 
and  vital  have  shrunken  to  such  inconsequence.  And  others 
which  have  been  only  vague  instincts  and  intuitions  seem  to 
matter  more  than  all  else  in  the  world  —  even  its  sufferings 
just  now.  I  don't  believe  I  can  explain  it  so  you'd  under 
stand." 

But  Nathan  did  understand. 

"Madelaine,"  he  said  slowly  after  a  time,  "I  received  a 
letter  from  Ted  Thome  about  a  month  ago;  he's  my  sales 
manager  who  sent  me  out  here  in  the  first  place.  Mosely, 
manager  of  our  New  York  office,  was  killed  in  France.  The 
man  who  took  his  place  can't  handle  the  work.  Ted  has 
offered  it  to  me.  It  carries  ten  thousand  a  year,  now.  You 
remember  me  telling  you  how  I  expected  the  position  once, 
but  felt  I  lost  caste  at  Mrs.  Mosely's  dinner  party?  Well, 
I'd  like  to  go  to  New  York  now  and  try  again.  But  — 
but " 

"You  have  a  ten-thousand  dollar  position  awaiting  you? 
How  perfectly  splendid!" 

"Madelaine,  I  can't  go  back  to  what  I  left  —  the  emptiness, 
the  petty  troubles  with  petty  people,  the  groping  around 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  461 

blindly  for  social  cues,  the  —  the  —  loneliness,  Madelaine !  I 
can't  go  back  to  half-a-life  again.  Despite  all  the  horrors  of 
war,  I've  been  happy  out  here !  —  I've  found  happiness  out 
here.  I  want  it  to  stay.  It  must  stay !  I  can't  go  down  into 
the  Fog.  Not  again.  I  feel  I've  gained  a  little  hilltop.  I 
mustn't  lose  even  that  partial  height.  I  can't." 

"Nathan,"  came  the  girl's  whisper,  "do  you  know  what 
you  want?" 

Did  he  know?    The  poet  in  Nathan  spoke  then. 

"Yes,"  he  cried  hoarsely.  "I  want  to  go  on.  I  want  to 
leave  sordid  mediocrity  behind  me  forever.  I  want  fine, 
rare,  delicate,  beautiful  things  about  me.  I  want  to  live  in 
an  atmosphere  of  them  and  a  home  of  them.  I  want  to  feed 
my  heart  and  my  soul  upon  them.  I  want  to  make  them  a 
part  of  me.  I  want  to  gain  from  life  every  last  iota  of 
artistry  and  softness  and  richness  it  has  to  give.  I  want  to 
do  my  work  with  a  song  in  my  heart.  I  want  every  hour  a 
golden  moment  and  time  just  something  to  pass  away.  I 
want  money  and  opportunity  to  indulge  that  deep  and  vital 
impulse  that  once  prompted  me  to  express  myself  in  rhyme. 
Do  I  know  what  I  want  ?  You  ask  me  that !  Yes,  I  know 
what  I  want !  I  want  all  of  these  things.  Not  to  imitate 
somebody  else  or  because  I  was  once  a  poor,  distraught  young 
colt  working  in  an  abattoir  for  a  dollar  a  day.  Not  that! 
But  for  the  sake  of  beautiful  things  and  one  hundred  per 
cent,  living  in  itself  —  because  beauty  is  —  next  to  godliness ! 
Yes,  it  is!  But  there's  something  I  want  more  than  all  of 
that,  Madelaine.  I  want  the  woman  I  first  saw  above  me  on 
a  Hill  Top,  standing  in  glorious  sunshine  looking  off  across 
a  far  country.  I  want  the  good  angel  who  saw  me  wounded 
and  exhausted,  struggling  up  from  low-lying  Fog,  and  came 
down  to  me  and  gave  me  her  strength  to  make  the  Summit. 
I  want  the  woman  who  listened  to  my  foolish,  pent-up 
heartache  that  winter's  night  in  far-away  Irkutsk  and  opened 
her  lap  and  told  me  that  nothing  else  mattered  except  lack 
of  belief  in  myself.  I  want  the  woman  who's  been  patient 
and  ministering  and  inspiring  in  a  thousand  hours  since  —  to 
go  home  with  me,  Madelaine  —  to  dwell  with  me  —  in  a 
Palace  Beautiful,  dear  girl  —  whose  windows  look  out  upon 
Delectable  Mountains.  I  want  you,  dear  Madelaine!  And 
my  heart  is  filled  with  such  rich,  mellowed  love  for  you  that 
it  chokes  my  throat.  You  stand  for  all  of  the  things  I've 


462  THE  FOG 

totaled,  dear  girl.  You're  the  best  and  biggest  thing  that's 
ever  come  into  my  life.  I  want  you  —  and  I  want  you  ter 
ribly!" 

A  pause.    An  insect  cheeping  somewhere  under  boxwood. 

"Then  why  don't  you  take  me,  foolish  boy?"  Woman 
Beautiful  laughed  softly. 

Hushed  Japanese  night,  the  moon  riding  hazily  above  the 
rakish  branches  of  eucalyptus  now,  cicadas  singing  on  into 
eternity,  paper  lanterns  bobbing  far  across  elfin  dark !  They 
stood  amid  the  trillion  blossoms  of  cherry  trees  whose  petals 
sifted  all  around  them,  and  Nathan  knew  for  the  first  time 
in  twenty-nine  barren,  heart-breaking  years,  the  sensation  of 
a  real  woman's  soft  arms  about  his  neck  and  the  sweet, 
scented,  delicate  impress  of  a  real  woman's  kiss  upon  his 
lips,  returning  his  caress  with  a  warmth  and  a  tenderness 
that  fused  his  heart  and  his  soul  and  made  them  as  one 
forever. 

The  white  parasol  was  lying  on  the  bench.  No  one  was 
left  in  the  park  but  themselves.  The  moonlight  was  again 
shining  into  a  woman's  face  as  they  stood  there  for  an 
instant  and  Nathan  held  her  close.  But  she  was  not  weakly 
flaccid  in  his  embrace.  Her  body  thrilled  to  his. 

"Dear  lad,"  she  said  in  a  faint  whisper,  "I've  waited  a 
dreary  time  for  your  strong  arms  around  me  and  your  hard- 
shaven  cheek  close  to  mine.  Oh,  I  don't  mean  merely  since 
the  Great  Noon-time  in  Siberia.  Years  before  that,  dear  lad, 
years  and  years !  Sunlit  days,  gray  days,  rainy  afternoons, 
empty  twilights,  nights  when  I  wanted  to  sob  in  the  darkness 
—  I  thought  of  you  and  wondered  where  you  were,  and  what 
you  were  doing,  and  if  in  your  heart  there  was  a  little  lonely 
ache  likewise.  I  wondered  how  badly  you  needed  me,  dear 
lad,  even  as  I  needed  you.  For  my  heart  ached  for  Romance, 
too,  until  it  almost  seemed  I'd  accept  my  disappointment  and 
believe  it  had  passed  me  by.  But  God  is  good.  You're  get 
ting  only  a  little  orphaned  girl,  dear  lad,  found  under  a  hay 
cock  on  the  edge  of  a  wood.  But  she  loves  you  —  loves  you 
a  bit  terribly  —  she  has  always  loved  you  —  loved  you  even 
before  she  knew  your  name,  or  where  you  were,  or  what 
the  sound  of  your  voice  was  like.  You  are  her  life  and  her 
world  henceforth.  She,  too,  has  found  her  Other  Half  and 
her  heart  will  never  greet  the  sunshine  coming  across  the 
hill  tops  in  the  morning  without  a  song  springing  to  her  lips 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  463 

and  tears  to  her  eyes.  It  has  been  a  bitter  wait,  dear  lad, 
and  the  way  has  not  always  seemed  clear.  But  the  end  of  the 
trek  —  it  is  sweet,  very  sweet.  We  will  go  back,  we  will  go 
home.  And  all  the  beautiful  things  you  have  wanted,  that 
I  can  help  you  get  —  they  shall  come  to  you.  Ail  the  artistry 
and  softness  and  richness  I  can  help  bring  to  you  shall  sur 
round  you.  You  shall  do  your  work  with  a  song  in  your 
heart  also.  Every  hour  shall  be  a  golden  moment.  Time 
shall  be  a  thing  only  to  pass  away.  Oh,  Nathan  dear,  I'm  the 
happiest  of  women.  We'll  go  home  with  the  morrow.  To 
gether  we  will  go  home  and  dwell  —  in  a  Palace  Beautiful  — 
whose  windows  look  out  on  Delectable  Mountains,  indeed!" 

"To-morrow  —  at  two  o'clock  —  home!" 

"Home!"  she  repeated.    "Oh,  Nathan!" 


in 

During  that  night  before  their  departure,  clouds  blew  in 
from  the  Pacific  and  blanketed  the  sea-coast  country.  They 
awoke  the  next  morning  to  find  a  light  drizzle  falling.  But 
it  held  up  after  breakfast  and  Madelaine  declared,  as  she 
turned  in  her  room  keys: 

"I've  several  purchases  to  make  before  we  go  on  board. 
Let's  go  penny-shopping  together." 

They  went  out  the  west  door  of  The  Grand,  brushing 
aside  the  eager,  solicitous  kuruma  men  and  turned  northward 
along  the  back  street  afoot.  Madelaine  wore  a  traveling 
suit  of  gray  worsted,  the  short  skirt  permitting  a  light,  easy 
stride.  Her  head  was  covered  with  a  mannish  hat  of  black 
velour,  half  the  brim  turned  down.  She  cared  little  for 
the  wet. 

They  picked  their  way  through  greasy  streets,  but  always 
when  it  was  necessary  for  the  woman  to  walk  ahead,  the 
man's  eyes  followed  her  hungrily.  Would  he  never  become 
weary  of  simply  gazing  upon  her?  The  sheer  grace  and 
delicacy  of  her  every  curve  and  line;  her  erect,  supple  car 
riage;  her  frank,  fearless,  appraising  eyes;  her  perfect  poise, 
regardless  of  the  situation ;  the  ephemeral  expressions  which 
played  upon  her  cameo  features ;  the  neatness  of  her  hair  at 
the  back  of  her  neck;  what  a  thoroughbred  she  was  to  her 
finger  tips! 


464  THE  FOG 

They  made  many  little  purchases  in  stores  and  curio 
shops.  Nathan  could  not  buy  her  the  diamond  he  wanted 
until  they  reached  America;  his  funds  were  too  low  and 
he  had  no  time  to  draw  on  home  for  more.  Her  diamond 
must  wait  until  they  reached  New  York.  But  it  would  be 
a  —  diamond! 

They  were  gradually  wending  their  way  toward  the  Ori 
ental  Steamship  wharf  when  a  window  of  carved  ivory  curios 
caught  Nathan's  fancy. 

"Let's  go  in  and  look  them  over,"  Madelaine  suggested. 
"We've  still  four  hours  to  spend  somehow  before  sailing." 

They  went  inside.  The  shop  was  arranged  European  style, 
deep  showcases  running  along  either  side  of  the  back.  The 
proprietor  laid  out  several  trays  and  cases  for  their  inspec 
tion.  Then  a  Japanese  boy  came  and  jabbered  at  him. 

"You  excuse,"  the  proprietor  grinned.  "I  send  Angleese 
man  sell  you,"  and  he  went  to  a  door  opening  into  a  sort  of 
workshop  and  called  in  an  order. 

The  "English"  clerk  came  forward,  along  behind  the 
counter.  Nathan's  head  was  bent  close  to  Madelaine's,  exam 
ining  an  ingenious  carving.  Nathan  turned  to  the  clerk  and 
held  it  out,  his  eyes  still  on  it. 

"What's  the  price  of  this?"  he  asked.  As  he  asked  it,  he 
raised  his  eyes  to  the  clerk's  face. 

He  was  looking  directly  into  the  features  of  his  father 


IV 

His  father! 

Separated  by  the  width  of  the  show  case  whose  edges  both 
gripped  suddenly.  Nathan  and  Johnathan  gazed  into  each 
other's  suddenly  ashen  faces. 

"You!"  cried  Johnathan.    "You!    My  — son!" 

Johnathan  had  grown  stouter  but  he  had  aged  twenty 
years.  Remorse,  loneliness,  self-pity  and  the  ever-present 
realization  that  he  was  an  exile  had  eaten  into  his  features 
like  acid.  Both  temples  were  white  but  it  was  a  weak, 
rusted,  moth-eaten  whiteness.  His  eyes  were  more  watery 
than  ever  and  his  mouth  as  loose,  excepting  for  the  petulant 
knots  of  muscles  in  each  corner. 

"Father !"  the  boy  gasped  huskily. 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  465 

Madelaine  frowned,  then  looked  on  wide-eyed.  From  his 
son's  bronzed,  muscular  face,  Johnathan's  gaze  leaped  to 
Madelaine's,  then  back  again.  Ivory  carvings  were  forgotten. 

"What  —  are  you  —  doing  —  out  here  ?" 

"I'm  on  my  way  back  home  from  Russia,"  Nathan  an 
swered  mechanically.  His  mind  was  still  stunned  with  the 
drama  of  it. 

"You  have  —  been  —  to  —  Russia  ?" 

"Siberia !  Yes !  I've  been  up  there  almost  a  year  and  a 
half,  working  among  the  Czechs." 

Johnathan's  body  had  not  moved.  Only  his  eyes  and  face. 
Again  the  father's  eyes  sought  Madelaine. 

"Up  in  Siberia?    Alone?" 

"Yes.  But  I'm  not  going  back  alone.  This  is  a  very  dear 
friend  of  mine.  Madelaine,  apparently  I  can  introduce  my 
father.  Father,  this  is  Miss  Theddon.  She  is  —  going  to 
be  —  my  wife." 

"Your  —  wife?    What's  become  of " 

"Of  Mildred?    She  died  some  time  ago." 

"My  God !"  cried  Johnathan  weakly.  He  rubbed  the  back 
of  a  puffy  hand  across  his  forehead.  Down  back  of  the 
counter  he  moved  unsteadily  to  reach  the  intersection  where 
he  could  come  out  from  behind  the  cases.  He  had  not 
acknowledged  Madelaine  or  the  introduction,  by  the  way.  It 
was  a  distressing  moment  for  Madelaine  but  she  recovered 
as  Johnathan  came  up. 

"I'm  sure  I'm  delighted  to  meet  Nathan's  father,"  she  said. 

Johnathan  gave  her  a  slight  nod  and  turned  at  once  to  his 
son.  In  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  she  might  have  been 
marooned  on  a  ring  around  Saturn. 

The  tears  were  streaking  down  Johnathan's  face.  He 
raised  his  hands  and  gripped  the  boy  by  his  elbows. 

"How  long  have  you  been  in  Yokohama?"  He  cried 
hoarsely. 

"Ten  days.  But  I  lived  here  three  months  before  I  went 
to  Siberia." 

"And  you  never  looked  me  up !" 

"I  tried  hard  enough.  But  nobody  knew  any  Johnathan 
Forge " 

Johnathan  started  at  the  pronouncement  of  his  name.  He 
shot  a  frightened  glance  around. 

"My  name  is  Smith!"  he  cried  — "John  Smith!" 


466  THE  FOG 

"I  couldn't  know  that,  of  course,"  returned  Nathan  dryly. 
He  was  beginning  to  recover  from  the  shock  of  the  encounter. 

"You  must  come  with  me!"  declared  the  father.  "You 
must  tell  me  all  about  Paris  and  —  home.  I  will  find  a  place 
for  you  to " 

"I'm  sorry,  father.  But  Miss  Theddon  and  I  are  sailing 
for  San  Francisco  at  two  o'clock." 

"Not  to-day!" 

"To-day,  yes." 

"But  —  but  —  we've  only  just  found  each  other." 

"That's  lamentable,  of  course.    But  I  can't  help " 

"You  must  put  off  your  sailing."  Johnathan  said  it  as 
though  he  had  settled  the  entire  matter. 

Nathan  shook  his  head. 

"Sorry,  father,"  he  answered.  "It's  impossible!  We've 
been  lucky  enough  to  secure  immediate  passage,  and  we  must 
get  back.  Miss  Theddon  is  not  in  the  best  of  health  and 
I've  got  a  New  York  job  waiting  that  can't  go  begging 
another  moment." 

"My  Lord!  You're  not  going  to  run  after  we've  just 
found  each  other!  Not  that,  Natie,  not  that!" 

"I'm  not  running.  But  I've  been  away  from  home  a  year 
and  a  half  and  we're  expected  back  June  first  without  fail." 

Johnathan  looked  around  frantically,  desperately. 

"No,"  he  said  after  a  time.  "I  don't  suppose  you  would 
stay,  not  for  me!  I  never  cut  much  of  a  figure  in  your 
life,  anyhow,  did  I,  Nathan?  You  and  your  plans  never  took 
much  account  of  your  father,  did  they?  Maybe  if  they  had, 
I'd  never  have  left  home  in  the  first  place."  Again  Johnathan 
smeared  the  back  of  his  hand  across  his  forehead.  He 
turned  to  Madelaine.  "For  twenty-five  years  it  was  just  like 
this !"  he  told  her.  "And  you  see  what  it's  done  to  me."  He 
submitted  himself  abjectly  for  general  compassion  and  sym 
pathy.  Madelaine's  voice  was  courteous  enough  but  a  bit 
icy  as  she  responded : 

"Your  son  has  told  me  the  whole  story,  Mr.  Forge.  I 
understand  perfectly." 

Johnathan  was  pitying  himself  too  much  in  this  closing 
phase  of  his  domestic  drama  to  interpret  her  sentiment 
correctly.  He  assumed  that  Madelaine  was  sympathizing 
with  him  against  Nathan. 

"He  always  was  headstrong,"  began  Johnathan  promptly. 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  467 

"Went  right  along  demanding  his  own  way  even  as  a  beard 
less  boy  that  couldn't " 

"Pardon,  Mr.  Forge.  You  misunderstood.  I  said  your 
son  has  told  me  the  whole  story  and  therefore  I  recognize 
exactly  where  the  blame  lies." 

Johnathan  gaped  for  a  moment.  There  was  no  mistaking 
her  calm  hostility.  He  turned  to  his  son. 

"Nathan !  —  For  God's  sake,  don't  go !  —  Don't  desert  me 
now  when  I've  j'ust  found  you  again.  I  never  deserted  you, 
Nathan ;  for  twenty-five  years  I  did  my  duty " 

It  was  awkward  to  have  his  father  suddenly  begin  to  act 
so.  Other  customers  had  entered  the  shop  and  were  behold 
ing.  Madelaine  read  on  her  lover's  face  the  distress  he  was 
seeking  a  way  to  ameliorate,  somehow.  Her  indignation 
rose. 

"Really,  Mr.  Forge,  is  it  quite  fair  to  appeal  to  Nathan  so? 
Because  I've  been  under  the  impression  you  did  desert  him  — 
and  left  him  to  face  a  somewhat  cruel  set  of  circumstances." 

"What  do  you  know  about  it?"  snapped  Johnathan. 
"You're  a  stranger  to  us  Forges " 

"Father!  That'll  be  enough  of  addressing  Miss  Theddon 
so,  please !  And  I  suggest  we  find  a  place  less  public  where 
we  may  talk." 

"Yes,  yes!"  agreed  Johnathan.  "The  back  office  here. 
They'll  leave  us  alone.  Come  into  the  back  office,  Natie." 

Nathan  glanced  at  Madelaine.  She  nodded.  They  moved 
toward  the  back  office. 

"Your  woman  friend  will  excuse  us,"  suggested  the  father 
curtly.  "We  have  much  to  talk  over  in  private,  Nathan." 

"Oh,  no,"  responded  the  son.  "I  don't  care  to  discuss 
anything  I  do  not  wish  Miss  Theddon  to  hear."  And  Nathan 
stood  aside  for  Madelaine  to  precede  him  into  the  cluttered 
little  workshop.  Johnathan  was  not  so  courteous. 

Johnathan,  in  fact,  was  piqued.  In  Madelaine  he  sensed 
an  adversary.  Immediately  he  took  no  care  to  keep  con 
cealed  his  estimate  of  her,  of  all  women.  They  seated  them 
selves,  a  smile  of  grim  humor  lurking  about  Madelaine's 
pretty  mouth. 

"First  you  will  cancel  your  passage,"  began  Johnathan 
doggedly.  "You  must  promise  me,  Nathan!  Remember, 
you'll  never  have  but  one  father." 

"I  cannot  and  will  not  delay  our  sailing,  father."     Nat's 


468  THE  FOG 

voice  was  kind  but  firm.  "Now  that's  settled,  what  about 
home  do  you  especially  wish  to  know?" 

Johnathan  produced  a  soiled  handkerchief  and  blew  his 
nose.  But  he  saw  that  because  of  the  influence  of  a  "female" 
undoubtedly,  the  son  was  the  same  adamant,  bigoted  colt  he 
had  always  been. 

"You  might  tell  me  about  yourself,"  he  said  lamely,  petu 
lantly.  "You  had  a  wonderful  little  wife,  Nathan.  What 
happened  to  her  ?"  Johnathan  said  this  for  Madelaine.  And 
he  did  not  miss  the  pallor  which  took  the  humorous  lip-smile 
from  the  girl's  features  as  he  said  it.  He  had  a  way  to 
wound  the  girl,  perhaps  drive  a  wedge  between  her  and  his 
boy.  "And  your  child,  Natie!  Little  Mary  was  one  of  the 
sweetest  tots  I  ever  saw.  What  became  of  her?" 

"She  was  killed  by  a  truck  a  year  before  Milly  died,"  was 
the  son's  rejoinder.  He  said  it  stiffly.  He  wondered  —  if  his 
father  was  to  be  deliberately  mean  —  if  it  might  not  have 
been  better  after  all  to  ask  Madelaine  to  wait  until  the  visit 
was  ended. 

"That's  hard,  Natie.  It  must  have  been  awful ;  you 
thought  so  much  of  her.  And  Milly?  I  always  loved  Milly. 
She  was  such  a  wonderful  little  woman  and  did  so  much  for 
you.  I  remember  she  was  the  only  one  who  stuck  by  us  in 
the  factory  the  time  you  had  that  trouble  with  the  help  and 
they  all  walked  out  on  you." 

"Milly  was  untrue  to  me,"  returned  Nathan  with  con 
tinued  stiffness.  "She  ran  away  with  that  Plumb  fellow  and 
was  killed  —  when  a  munitions  plant  exploded  in  Russell- 
ville,  New  Jersey." 

Johnathan  assimilated  this  after  a  time.  He  murmured 
philosophically,  "The  ways  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord !" 

Nathan  grimaced. 

"What  else  do  you  wish  to  know,  father  ?"  he  asked  — 
and  waited. 

"And  now  you're  plunging  into  matrimony  again  so  quick ! 
I  don't  see  how  you  can  do  it,  Natie  —  out  of  respect  to 
Milly's  memory  if  nothing  else." 

Nathan  kept  his  temper  admirably.  He  could  apologize 
to  Madelaine  for  the  insult  afterward  —  an  entire  lifetime  of 
apology. 

"I  owe  Milly  nothing.     I  told  you  she  ran  away  with 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  469 

Plumb.  Anyway,  we  won't  talk  about  that.  You're  only 
dwelling  upon  it  because  you  see  it  annoys  Miss  Theddon. 
What  other  information  can  I  give  you?" 

Johnathan's  manner  changed. 

"How  about  your  mother?"  he  demanded  like  a  challenge. 

"Mother  had  a  bitter  time  after  you  left  us.  She  sold  the 
Longstreet  house  but  a  smooth  oil-stock  salesman  cheated 
her  out  of  the  money.  At  present  she's  living  with  Edith." 

Johnathan  turned  to  Madelaine. 

"And  among  the  things  my  son  has  told  you,"  he  demanded, 
"did  he  include,  perhaps,  an  account  of  the  twenty-five 
years  of  hell  I  lived  with  his  mother?  For  twenty-five 
years  she  was  my  trial  and  my  cross.  I  couldn't  stand  it 
finally.  I  had  to  get  out.  There  was  no  other  escape  but 
flight.  Human  flesh  and  blood  couldn't  stand  it,  I  tell  you ! 
Wait  till  you  get  to  know  her.  Then  you'll  sympathize  with 
me.  There's  righteousness  and  justice  in  this  world  some 
where  and  the  wicked  get  their  deserts." 

Madelaine  made  no  comment.  The  pause  which  ensued 
angered  Johnathan. 

"From  the  very  night  I  was  married,"  he  went  on  in  a 
trifle  higher  tone,  "the  tussle  began.  Never  once  did  she  try 
to  help  me  or  stand  back  of  me  in  my  battle  with  the  world. 
She  nagged  me  and  she  fought  me.  She " 

"Possibly,  Mr.  Forge,"  interrupted  Madelaine.  "But  why 
tell  me  about  it?" 

"You're  marrying  into  the  family,  ain't  you?  There's  — 
things  —  which  you  should  know." 

"I'm  merely  marrying  Nathan,"  responded  Madelaine. 

The  interview  was  going  badly.  Great  tears  continued  to 
roll  down  Johnathan's  face  and  he  blew  his  nose  again  and 
again. 

"What  business  are  you  in,  Natie?"  he  finally  asked.  He 
was  an  injured  man.  There  was  not  a  doubt  about  it.  All 
the  world  had  it  in  for  him. 

"I  secured  a  position  with  the  Thorne  knitting  mills," 
returned  Nathan.  "I  traveled  for  them  a  year  and  a  half. 
Then  they  sent  me  out  here  to  the  Orient.  I'm  going  back 
as  manager  of  their  New  York  office." 

"Well,  Natie,  you  have  your  father  to  thank  for  that! 
If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  business  training  I  gave  you,  no 
firms  would  ever  be  offering  you  any  New  York  manage- 


470  THE  FOG 

ments  at  your  age.  Why,  when  I  was  your  age  I  was  lucky 
to  draw  twelve  dollars  a  week.  We  worked  for  our  money 
in  those  days." 

Nathan  finally  felt  it  time  to  put  a  few  inquiries  himself. 

"How  does  it  happen  you're  working  here,  father  ?  Money 
give  out?" 

Johnathan  turned  quickly  and  looked  through  the  window 
into  a  dismal  yard. 

"The  curse  of  us  Forges,  Natie,"  he  finally  responded, 
"has  always  been  women.  You'll  learn  it  one  of  these  days !" 

"How  does  it  happen  you're  working  here?  Money  give 
out?"  Nathan  repeated. 

"I  started  to  tell  you,  if  you'll  be  respectful  and  wait  a 
moment.  Don't  be  so  hot-headed.  Hot-headedness  and  lack 
of  respect  always  were  your  faults,  Natie!" 

Nathan  waited  as  patiently  as  possible. 

"I  came  out  here,"  Johnathan  went  on,  "seeking  love  and 
surcease  from  all  I'd  suffered.  I  met  a  woman.  I  thought 
she  was  in  every  way  a  woman  to  be  desired,  Nathan.  I 
married  her ' 

"You  married  her !  You  were  never  divorced  from 
mother !" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  was!  Do  you  think  I'm  a  bigamist?  I  got 
a  divorce  from  your  mother  under  the  Japanese  laws " 

"Mother  never  knew  about  it." 

"I  can't  help  that." 

"The  divorce  laws  of  Japan,  Nathan,"  explained  Made- 
laine  with  a  faint  smile,  "are  very  simple.  When  a  man 
grows  tired  of  his  wife  in  Japan  he  may  dispense  with  her 
by  merely  walking  out  and  leaving  her,  first  informing  the 
police  to  that  effect,  I  believe.  Then  he  contracts  a  new 
marriage  by  going  to  live  with  his  paramour  and  duly  in 
forming  the  police  to  that  effect  also,  giving  his  new  resi 
dence.  One  of  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.  girls  explained  it  to  me." 

Johnathan  ignored  Madelaine.    He  went  on: 

"I  got  a  divorce  from  your  mother  under  the  laws  of 
Japan.  I  married  what  I  supposed  was  a  woman  who'd  be 
the  wife  I  deserved  —  after  all  I'd  been  through  back  in  the 
States.  But  she  was  like  all  women.  I  lived  with  her  just 
two  days.  I  was  fool  enough  to  intrust  my  bank  account  to 
her.  The  third  day  she  was  missing  and  so  was  the  money. 
I've  never  got  trace  of  either,  since.  I  had  to  take  a  job." 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  471 

Nathan  flushed  again  with  the  new  insult  te  Madelaine. 
But  for  an  instant  his  anger  was  arrested  by  the  announce 
ment  that  his  father  had  been  flimflammed  by  an  adventuress. 

"Edith  has  six  children  now,"  he  essayed,  after  a  painful 
moment. 

But  Johnahan  was  not  interested  in  the  fact  that  Edith 
had  six  children.  He  went  on  in  the  same  whine: 

"I'm  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  Natie.  I've  been  here 
the  last  three  years  —  waiting  on  trade,  interpreting  for  my 
employers  because  I  learned  how  to  speak  a  little  Japanese. 
Think  of  it,  Natie  —  waiting  on  trade  for  a  godless  heathen 
—  me!" 

"Under  the  circumstances  it  ought  to  be  a  very  good  posi 
tion,"  observed  the  son. 

The  visit  continued  in  this  strain  until  noontime.  Then 
they  went  out  together  to  a  small  restaurant  and  had  tiffin. 
Johnathan  managed  to  get  Nathan  alone. 

"Son,"  he  cried  brokenly,  "you  must  loan  me  some  money. 
I'm  at  the  end  of  my  rope.  Some  days  I  think  there's  nothing 
left  but  to  jump  in  the  Bay." 

"How  much  money  do  you  need  ?" 

"All  you  can  spare  me,"  was  Johnathan's  modest  request. 

"I'm  low  on  funds,  father.  I've  got  just  about  enough  to 
get  me  back  to  Vermont.  I  wanted  to  buy  Miss  Theddon  a 
diamond  but  have  had  to  wait  until " 

"Could  you  let  me  have  a  thousand  yen,  say  ?  That's  only 
five  hundred  and  ten  dollars ! — in  cash !" 

"It's  out  of  the  question,  just  now.  I've  only  a  hundred 
and  eighty  dollars  with  me  and  my  passage  across  America 
will  use  up  a  hundred  of  that." 

Ultimately  Nathan  gave  his  father  twenty-five  dollars,  — 
fifty-five  ten-yen  notes.  Johnathan  took  them  rather  sourly. 
He  placed  more  stock  in  the  money  Nathan  promised  to  wire 
when  he  reached  Vermont. 

"Oh,  my  boy,  my  boy!  What  are  you  doing?"  he  next 
cried,  anent  Madelaine.  "You're  fortunate  enough  for  your 
first  wife  to  die  on  you.  Straightaway  you  go  putting  your 
head  in  the  halter  again !  After  all  I  tried  to  save  you  from ! 
After  all  your  father's  example!  Oh,  well!  You  deserve 
nothing  but  the  misery  coming  to  you  !  This  is  a  just  world !" 

"Let's  not  talk  about  Miss  Theddon,  father.  She's  the 
sort  of  lady  I'm  afraid  you  wouldn't  understand." 


472  THE  FOG 

"Wouldn't  I,  though?  Don't  try  to  tell  me  there's  any 
kind  of  female  I  don't  understand !  I'm  older  than  you  and 
therefore  must  know  better.  And  never  mind  how  many 
miles  of  land  and  water  separate  us,  young  man,  remember 
I  am  always  your  father.  I  am  always  your  father !" 

"Just  what  has  that  to  do  with  an  understanding  of 
womanhood?"  asked  Nathan  quietly.  The  old,  old  feel 
ing  of  groping  in  a  fog  the  moment  he  came  in  contact 
with  his  father  came  over  him.  He  wanted  to  fight  it  sav 
agely. 

"Just  you  wait  till  you're  married  to  her  a  spell  —  long 
enough  for  the  'new'  to  wear  off!  You'll  see!  You  think 
she's  fine  and  grand  now,  just  because  she's  got  a  pretty 
face !  But  you  wait !  You'll  be  sorry  not  taking  your  wise 
father's  advice.  Just  as  you  did  once  before.  Wait  till 
you  see  her  running  around  in  broken  corsets  or  dirty  under 
clothes  " 

"Father,  you're  disgusting.     Please  change  the  subject!" 

"You  can't  tell  me  nothing  about  women,  young  man! 
Didn't  I  live  twenty-five  years  with  one !  They're  all  alike ! 
And  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  'em  are  bad  —  bad  clean 
through  to  the  spleen.  But  I'll  pray  for  you,  my  son  —  I'll 
never  cease  praying  for  you!" 


The  Siberia  Maru  was  prompt  in  casting  off.  Johnathan 
grew  a  bit  abusive,  then  hysterical,  as  the  hour  drew  near 
for  departure.  He  clutched  his  boy  as  though  he  would 
hold  him  by  force.  Nathan  waited  until  the  last  moment. 
Then  he  turned  and  extended  his  hand. 

"Good-by,  father,"  he  said. 

Johnathan's  face  resembled  the  hue  of  a  drowned  corpse 
when  he  said  good-by  in  a  whisper.  Nathan  hurried  aboard. 
Hatches  were  being  battened  down,  winches  fastened,  the 
gangplank  raised,  as  he  found  Madelaine  by  the  rail  high 
on  the  promenade  deck.  Side  by  side  they  leaned  over  and 
watched  the  crowd  below.  In  that  crowd  Nathan  finally 
located  his  father's  upturned  face. 

Madelaine  started  to  say  something  sympathetic  to  her 
lover,  but  the  three-minute  blast  of  the  vessel's  departing 
whistle  drowned  out  her  voice. 


ENTANGLING  ALLIANCES  473 

Slowly  the  liner  backed  from  her  little  stall  in  the  great 
port.  A  steam  tug  at  her  prow  turned  her  southward. 

Nathan  lost  his  father's  figure  in  the  crowd,  then  found 
him  again. 

Johnathan  was  using  his  handkerchief  alternately  to  smear 
his  face  and  then  wave  the  little  flash  of  white  as  bravely  as 
he  could. 

"Have  I  done  right  by  him,  Madelaine?"  begged  the  son 
brokenly.  "For  heaven's  sake,  tell  me  if  I've  erred  ?" 

"You  have  not  erred,  Nathan.  This  is  a  world  in  which 
our  sins  punish  themselves  —  always." 

Nathan  looked  back  as  the  ship's  great  engine-beat  started, 
a  throbbing  which  would  not  cease  until  they  paused  in 
Honolulu  harbor,  ten  days  later. 

A  lone  figure  was  on  the  farthest  point  of  the  dock.  A 
tiny  white  kerchief  was  rising  and  falling  weakly.  Then  an 
incoming  liner  hid  it  from  sight. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

EAST  IS  WEST 


That  journey  homeward! 

The  backlash  of  a  typhoon  blown  up  from  the  China  Sea 
made  rough  sailing  the  first  two  days  of  the  voyage.  Pas 
sengers  kept  to  their  staterooms.  But  the  third  evening 
Madelaine  dressed  for  dinner. 

She  had  a  dinner  gown  in  her  trunk  which  had  reposed 
in  the  Tokio  Y.  W.  C.  A.  during  her  absence  in  Siberia. 
When  she  joined  Nathan  in  the  passageway  after  her  toilet 
was  complete,  the  man  failed  to  recognize  her  for  an  instant. 
She  actually  had  to  speak  to  him  as  she  approached.  Then 
a  thrill  shot  through  him  at  sight  of  her  loveliness  that  burned 
to  the  roots  of  his  hair. 

She  was  a  sensation  as  she  preceded  her  lover  through  the 
crowded  saloon  a  moment  later. 

"'Sst!  Get  onto  the  peach!"  Nathan  overheard  a  little 
undersized  Hebrew  whisper  swiftly  to  a  fellow  diner  as  he 
and  Madelaine  passed  one  of  the  door  tables. 

They  walked  afterward  on  the  upper  deck  in  the  mellow 
starlit  darkness,  a  light  scarf  about  the  girl's  bare  shoulders. 
Those  stars  hung  very  luminous  and  close  again.  But  now 
they  were  merely  watchwords,  hung  over  the  sea. 

Off  by  the  tarpaulined  lifeboats  in  the  shadows  cast  by  the 
massive  ventilators,  the  two  finally  leaned  over  the  rail.  The 
moon  was  coming  up.  It  came  up  while  they  stayed  there. 

The  man's  arm  stole  around  the  girl's  waist.  He  drew  her 
close.  And  she  sighed  contentedly  in  that  embrace  and 
relaxed  against  him. 

"Happy,  dear?"  she  whispered. 

"Happy?  Madelaine,  there's  a  dull,  poignant  ache  way 
down  inside  —  that  I'm  going  to  awaken  soon  and  find  it  all 
a  dream.  I  can't  explain  it.  The  world  is  changed.  To- 


EAST  IS  WEST  475 

night  —  this  moment  —  I'm  the  happiest  man  in  it  and  I'd  go 
through  it  all  again  if  I  thought  that  in  the  end  I'd  reach 
the  luxury  of  this  moment." 

"We're  going  to  have  a  big  church  wedding,  laddie,  dear 
—  if  you'll  agree.  There  must  be  lights  and  flowers  and 
laughter  and  music  —  a  surfeit  of  it,  because  we've  wanted 
it  so  long,  both  of  us.  Besides,  it's  the  last  thing  mother'll 
be  able  to  do  for  me.  It  would  break  her  heart  if  she 
couldn't." 

"You've  written  to  her  about  —  me?"  Nathan  asked 
thickly. 

"Do  you  think  I  could  keep  it  to  myself,  you  foolish  boy? 
And  she's  going  to  meet  us  at  the  Springfield  station  and 
you're  to  stay  with  us  a  few  days  before  you  go  up  to  Ver 
mont  and  close  your  position  with  your  mill  people." 

"When  will  it  happen,  dear  —  the  lights  and  the  laughter, 
the  flowers  and  the  music?" 

"I'd  like  it  to  be  the  first  of  October,  laddie.  Mother  will 
certainly  want  that  much  time  to  prepare.  But  never  mind. 
The  weeks  will  go  quickly.  And  you'll  be  right  near-by  in 
New  York.  You  must  come  up  every  week-end.  And  I'll 
be  in  New  York  to  do  my  wedding  shopping  too,  laddie. 
Also  there's  the  question  of  our  house.  We'll  want  to  settle 
that  in  the  meantime." 

The  man  was  silent.  The  moon  came  up  out  of  a  tropical 
sea  and  made  a  pathway  of  silver  straight  to  their  feet.  His 
voice  shaking  with  emotion,  he  finally  said : 

"Madelaine  dear,  there's  something  I've  been  wanting  to 
speak  about  for  a  long,  long  time.  It's  about  myself.  In  a 
way  I'm  glad  you  saw  father.  Maybe  you  can  understand 
why  I've  wanted  to  be  a  little  bigger  and  better  than  he  has 
shown  himself.  But  I  haven't  had  any  one  to  coach  me,  dear. 
I've  grown  rather  hit-or-miss  and  had  to  get  the  corners 
removed  in  a  hard,  rough  way.  And  I'm  afraid  they're  not 
all  removed  —  far  from  it." 

"Coach  you?" 

"I  know  I'm  rough  and  crude.  In  a  lot  of  ways  Bernie 
was  right.  I  know  there  are  times  when  perhaps  I  shock 
you  with  those  crudities.  But  it  isn't  because  I  haven't  the 
desire  to  learn.  If  you'll  only  be  patient,  I'll  try  my 
best " 

"Let's  not  talk  about  it,  laddie.    Of  course  I  know  you'll 


476  THE  FOG 

try  your  best.  I've  seen  you  eager  to  do  your  best  so  many 
times  it's  often  brought  tears  to  my  eyes.  You  never  knew. 
Of  course  there  are  old  habits  you've  been  almost  thirty 
years  forming  that  can't  be  broken  in  a  moment.  They're 
deeper  than  your  conscious  mind.  Yes  —  I  know  all  that! 
I  guess  it's  because  you're  trying  so  hard  that  I've  gone  on 
loving  you  more  and  more.  No  man  need  despair  of  becom 
ing  a  polished,  courtly  gentleman  who  has  a  basic  love  of 
beauty  in  his  heart.  All  else  is  a  matter  of  practice  and 
contact.  Anyway,  you  suit  me,  and  if  you  keep  on  the  way 
you've  been  going  the  past  six  months,  at  forty  I'm  going 
to  drop  right  down  on  my  bony  old  knees  and  worship  you 
—  the  little  tin  god  that  I've  made!" 

"No  woman  ever  talked  to  me  as  you  do,  Madelaine.  It 
would  be  a  pretty  cheap  fellow  who  couldn't  respond  to  your 
'handling.'  You  don't  scold  or  preach,  like  all  the  rest,  and 
make  me  more  self-conscious  than  ever.  There's  something 
you  radiate  that  simply  won't  let  a  fellow  be  a  boor  while 
you're  around.  And  I  love  you!  Dear  God,  how  I  love 
you !  What  can  I  ever  do  to  show  it  ?  I  wonder  what  ?" 

"Well,  dear,  just  now  you  might  kiss  me,"  Madelaine 
responded,  pinching  his  hard  ruddy  hand.  "For  the  present 
that  will  be  quite  sufficient." 

Music  started  somewhere  on  the  decks  below. 

"A  waltz !"  cried  the  girl.    "Come  on,  Natie,  let's  dance." 

"I  can't  dance,"  confessed  Nathan  bitterly. 

"Well,  what  the  stuff-and-nonsense  difference  does  that 
make?  I'm  here  to  teach  you,  am  I  not?  Come  on,  you 
horrible  troglydyte !  You're  going  to  get  your  first  lesson  in 
waltzing  under  the  absolutely  impersonal  instruction  of  your 
Girl-Without-a-Name !" 

And  he  did. 

ii 

A  dream,  a  dream  —  all  a  dream ! 

The  lights  of  Telegraph  Hill  showed  nebulous  through 
the  evening  coast-mist  on  the  night  of  the  twenty-fifth.  The 
following  day  they  were  on  their  way  through  Nevada. 
They  reached  Chicago  on  the  twenty-ninth  and  Albany 
eighteen  hours  later.  Thence  they  traveled  in  a  chair-car 
to  Springfield. 


EAST  IS  WEST  477 

Madelaine  had  time  to  call  her  mother  on  the  long-distante 
telephone  in  Albany.  Mrs.  Theddon  was  meeting  them 
with  the  motor  at  the  Union  station  in  Springfield.  And  as 
all  journeys  must  have  an  end  some  time,  even  a  Dream 
Journey,  the  steel  girders  of  the  railroad  bridge  across  the 
Connecticut  finally  vibrated  to  the  dull  roar  of  their  incom 
ing  train.  A  moment  later  they  had  crossed  over  the  stone 
arch  with  the  brilliant  illumination  of  Main  Street,  Spring 
field,  stretching  north  and  south.  The  train  came  to  a  stop. 
Gracia  Theddon  espied  them  through  the  Pullman  windows. 

Nathan  turned  to  help  Madelaine  down  the  steps.  Never 
was  there  such  a  reunion. 

"And  this  is  Nathan!"  cried  Mrs.  Theddon.  She  did 
everything  but  kiss  him.  "It  makes  me  happy  to  greet  you 
because  I  can  see  you  have  made  my  Madelaine  so  happy ! 
Come,  the  car  is  waiting.  We  will  go  up  at  once." 

A  chauffeur  seemed  to  materialize  out  of  atmosphere  and 
appropriate  the  suit  cases.  They  passed  through  the  big 
waiting  room  to  the  portico  steps  on  the  south,  where  a 
limousine  throbbed  softly. .  And  as  Nathan  followed  into 
that  car  and  the  driver  closed  the  door,  the  man  who  had 
always  known  crude  and  sordid  things,  even  though  he 
rebelled  against  them,  had  an  overwhelming  sense  of  peace. 
He  was  finding  his  own.  A  world  of  beautiful  things  awaited 
him,  beauty  and  richness,  —  not  for  cheap,  provincial  show, 
not  because  they  had  to  do  with  The  Best  People,  but  beauty 
for  beauty's  sake  because  at  heart  he  had  ever  been  the 
artist.  It  was  not  the  awed  provincial  finding  himself  sud 
denly  amid  patrician  environment.  It  was  fine,  rare,  delicate 
atonement  at  last  with  all  the  best  things  which  deepen  life 
and  enrich  it,  the  delectable  attributes  toward  which  man 
kind  has  aspired  on  all  the  long  climb  from  mumbling  over 
bones  in  the  river  bottoms  of  the  Neanderthal  age  to  the 
twentieth  century  and  as  Nathan  had  once  expressed  it- — 
"art  drawing-rooms  softly  shaded  at  midnight."  The  wor 
ship  of  beauty  had  become  a  religion  with  Nathan.  It  stood 
for  God.  And  what  is  there  irreverent  in  that? 

It  had  never  occurred  to  Nathan  that  he  was  "marrying 
money."  He  knew  in  a  general  way  that  Madelaine's  foster- 
mother  was  wealthy.  But  when  the  limousine  rolled  under 
the  Long  Hill  porte-cochere  and  old  Murfins,  gray-haired 
now  —  what  hair  remained  —  was  waiting  for  them  in  the 


478  THE  FOG 

opened  doorway,  the  home  into  which  the  young  Vermonter 
passed  brought  the  realization  to  him  with  perturbing  force. 
He  felt  immediately  chagrined.  He  was  impatient  to  start 
his  work  and  show  these  people  who  were  accepting  him  for 
their  own  that  he  was  worthy  of  their  confidence. 

Dinner  was  served  almost  as  soon  as  Nathan  could  groom 
himself.  And  after  it  was  over  —  though  they  sat  for  a  long 
time  over  their  coffee  while  Madelaine  tried  to  convey  to  her 
mother  a  faint  idea  of  what  the  two  had  experienced  —  they 
went  out  upon  the  wide  veranda  at  the  back  of  the  house. 
The  place  was  softly  lighted  and  awning  shaded.  The  broad 
sweep  of  the  Connecticut  was  calm  as  a  mill  pond  at  their 
feet,  the  serried  lights  of  the  south-end  bridge  prinkling  in 
the  water  as  the  afterglow  died  upon  the  distant  Berkshires. 


in 

Their  trunks  had  arrived  and  been  carried  to  their  rooms 
during  dinner.  It  was  shortly  after  eight-thirty  when 
Madelaine  exclaimed  to  Nathan : 

"I  know  what  let's  do !  Suppose  we  slip  upstairs  and  dress 
in  our  army  clothes  to  show  mother  how  we  looked  in  the 
field !  I  think  it  would  be  jolly !" 

Nathan  complied.  It  took  him  a  quarter-hour  to  make 
the  change. 

"It's  not  exactly  what  I'd  wear  on  parade,"  he  apologized 
grimly  on  his  return. 

"I  imagine  Siberia  was  no  tea  party!"  returned  Mrs. 
Theddon.  She  was  as  happy  as  a  young  girl  herself  this 
night,  though  she  had  faded  much  through  worry  over  her 
daughter.  Her  hair  was  almost  iron  gray  now  with  that 
anxiety. 

Madelaine  was  in  the  center  of  the  veranda,  turning  about 
to  show  her  mother  a  rent  in  her  cape  where  a  stray  Bolshevik 
bullet  had  penetrated  one  night  beyond  Omsk,  when  old 
Murfins  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"Mr.  Ruggles  is  calling,  Miss  Madelaine,"  he  announced. 
"Mr.  Gordon  Ruggles!" 

Gordon ! 

From  the  Great  High  Noon  the  one  slender  shadow  cast 
upon  Madelaine's  happiness  had  been  the  thought  of  Gordon. 


EAST  IS  WEST  479 

She  stood  for  a  moment  irresolute  now.  Then  to  the  servant 
she  said  evenly : 

"Please  show  him  upstairs  —  the  library.  I'll  be  up  di 
rectly."  Madelaine  turned  to  Nathan.  "I  want  him  to 
meet  you.  But  not  just  yet.  I  must  talk  to  him  first." 

Gordon  was  standing  before  the  west  window,  looking 
down  on  the  Connecticut  with  his  back  to  the  room  when 
Madelaine  finally  entered.  It  was  the  same  apartment  where 
she  had  bade  him  good-bye  —  offered  him  her  lips  —  which 
he  had  not  taken.  He  was  still  in  his  uniform  and  she  knew 
when  she  beheld  it,  as  well  as  the  man  inside,  that  he  had  not 
played  at  war. 

"Gordon!"  she  cried,  coming  swiftly  forward.  She  held 
out  both  hands. 

He  did  not  speak.  If  he  was  surprised  at  beholding  her 
in  a  nurse's  outfit,  he  gave  no  sign. 

War  had  taken  its  toll  from  Gordon.  It  seemed  as  though 
his  fine  patrician  mold  had  been  cast  into  the  Great  Furnace 
and  when  the  dross  had  been  melted  away  he  was  pure  metal 
but  hardened  somehow.  He  was  thin ;  he  looked  as  though 
he  had  suffered  much. 

"I'm  sorry  to  intrude  to-night,  Madge.  But  I  couldn't 
help  it.  Forgive  me!  Under  the  circumstances  I  had  to 
come !" 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad  to  see  you !    And  it's  perfectly  all  right !" 

He  grasped  her  outstretched  hand  and  bent  above  it.  It 
was  very  neatly  done,  very  much  the  appropriate  thing  —  for 
Gordon. 

It  was  not  until  he  had  been  called  to  meet  Nathan  and 
Madelaine  saw  his  peculiar  gait  in  crossing  the  room  that 
she  knew  he  had  not  returned  as  he  went  away.  Gordon  had 
lost  his  left  leg  at  the  knee  in  the  Argonne,  but  aside  from 
a  stiffness  in  his  stride,  no  one  might  suspect. 

"I've  intruded  to-night  because  I'm  going  to  Chicago  and 
thence  out  to  Kansas  at  once,  Madge.  And  I  wanted  to  offer 
my  best  wishes.  I'm  glad,  Madge  —  glad  —  that  you  —  are 
very  happy!" 

"Gordon!    You  know?" 

"Aunt  Gracia  told  me.  I  was  discharged  from  the  hospital 
in  January.  Aunt  Grace  allowed  me  to  read  certain  portions 
of  your  letters  about  —  html  It  couldn't  be,  Madge  —  you 
and  I.  And  in  fairness  to  us  both,  I  ought  to  add  that  I  felt 


480  THE  FOG 

it  the  night  I  went  away.    At  least  I  felt  I  couldn't  take  you 

—  with  clean  hands." 
"Oh,  Gord!" 

"You  had  known  me  so  long  —  I  had  grown  up  with  you 
and  showed  myself  such  a  rotter  before  you  straightened 
me  out  —  that  there  would  have  been  little  real  romance  in  it, 
between  you  and  me,  if  I  had  been  the  man.  I  felt  a  little 
bitter  over  it  when  I  first  heard.  But  a  fellow  learns  a  lot 
of  things  in  such  a  Big  Show  as  we've  just  ended.  He  learns 
not  to  whimper  if  luck  goes  against  him.  But  aside  from  that 

—  there  was  yet  another  reason." 

For  a  moment  they  surveyed  one  another.  Of  the  two, 
Madelaine  was  the  most  perturbed.  Perturbed  because  after 
her  half-year  propinquity  with  Nathan,  everything  which 
her  fiance  possessed  stood  forth  so  sharply  by  contrast  with 
the  man  who  faced  her  now. 

Nathan  had  calm  eyes.  Gordon's  eyes  were  not  calm. 
They  were  troubled.  Nathan  had  hard-muscled  jaws  and 
philosophical  lips.  Gordon  had  —  well,  just  a  mouth,  and  it 
was  a  bit  too  harsh.  Nathan  carried  himself  gravely,  shoul 
ders  well  back,  feet  on  the  ground.  Gordon  had  a  proclivity 
toward  a  slight,  slender,  patrician  slouch.  Nathan  had  talon 
hands,  a  man's  hands,  made  to  grasp,  create,  build,  deal 
sledge-hammer  blows.  Gordon's  hands  were  lithe,  pink, 
neatly  manicured,  made  to  handle  a  cigarette  gracefully. 

Yet  Gordon  was  no  less  a  man  than  Nathan.  He  was 
simply  a  different  type  of  man. 

Comparing  the  two  now,  however,  Madelaine  understood 
why  she  had  never  been  able  to  abandon  herself  to  Gordon. 
Being  very  feminine,  she  had  hungered  for  the  virility  of 
Nathan's  jaws  and  hands  and  iron  arms. 

"You're  going  to  Chicago  and  Kansas,  Gordon?    Why?" 

"I  am  going  to  be  married,  Madge." 

"Married!" 

"I  have  told  Aunt  Gracia  why.  When  I'm  gone,  she  will 
explain.  You  think  it  strange  perhaps  —  after  what  happened 
here  in  this  room  when  we  parted.  But  when  I  knew  I  had 
lost,  with  you  —  and  then  one  night  Over  Across  when  I  got 
in  a  pinch  where  I  had  no  assurance  I  would  live  until  morn 
ing,  I  did  some  vital  thinking,  Madge.  I  found  there  were 
many  things  in  my  life  which,  if  I  had  the  chance,  I  would 
rectify.  I  was  spared  to  rectify  them.  I  did  a  rotten  thing 


EAST  IS  WEST  481 

by  another  girl  once,  Madge.  And  I  choose  to  think  I  lost 
you  because  I  dared  approach  you  without  my  debt  to  another 
woman  paid  in  full.  At  any  rate,  without  trying  to  make  a 
hero  of  myself  in  this  distressing  explanation,  I  —  well  —  I 
found  the  girl  loved  me  very  dearly  and  had  married  another 
man  whom  she  did  not  love  because  he  was  willing  to  have 
her  after  —  after  —  well,  to  speak  the  brutal  truth,  in  army 
slang  —  after  I'd  'made  hamburg'  of  her  life.  We're  to  be 
married,  I  say,  and  we're  going  out  to  Kansas.  I  shall  try 
to  nurse  the  girl  back  to  —  to  —  what  she  was  when  I  met 
her.  My  treatment  made  her  a  nervous  wreck." 

Madelaine  was  very  pale  as  Gordon  made  this  confession. 
She  backed  against  the  table  and  whetted  her  parted  lips. 

"Gordon,"  she  whispered  huskily,  "  —  is  it  Bernie  Grid- 
ley?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  man  simply.  "And  I  want  you  to  know 
that  even  if  you  had  not  found  Mr.  Forge,  and  had  returned 
willing  to  accept  me,  I  should  still  have  pursued  the  course 
I'm  taking  now." 

For  a  moment  Madelaine  surveyed  him.  And  then  she 
saw  the  clean-cut  character  in  the  thing  he  was  doing.  With 
her  intuitive  understanding  of  psychology,  she  realized  that 
the  very  best  side  of  her  cousin  was  disclosing  itself  now. 

"Gordon  —  was  that  —  why  you  would  not  kiss  me  on  the 
lips  —  the  last  time  we  faced  each  other  in  this  room  ?" 

"Something  of  the  sort,  Madge.    Yes." 

"Gordon,  this  is  a  very  manly  thing  you're  doing.  A 
big  thing !" 

"Please  don't  make  it  any  more  distressing.  I'm  not  doing 
it  from  any  hope  of  praise  or  sense  of  duty.  I'm  doing  it 
because  I  found  a  new  thrill  in  shooting  straight,  after  you 
gave  me  the  incentive  to  stop  sloughing,  Madge.  And  —  I've 
learned  more  —  in  France.  Miss  Gridley  can  never  be  to  me 
what  you  have  been,  Madge.  But  then,  I  don't  deserve  you, 
and  never  did.  I  can  make  Miss  Gridley  very  happy.  I  can 
nurse  her  back  to  normality  and  health.  She  has  very  great 
confidence  in  me.  She  loves  me  greatly.  She  was  very 
tender  when  she  heard  I  had  returned  and  was  confined  in 
the  hospital.  She  visited  me  every  day.  It  will  not  be  at  all 
difficult  to  love  her  for  that  tenderness.  All  of  us  have  the 
capacity  to  love,  I  find,  Madge,  when  the  basis  of  love  is 
service.  And  there  is  usually  a  Great  Circumstance  where 


482  THE  FOG 

we  eventually  find  we  can  serve  —  very  beautifully.    Please 
don't  weep,  Madelaine.    Your  mother  —  my  aunt " 

"Mother  doesn't  need  to  tell  me  anything,  Gordon.  I 
understand.  I  cared  for  Bernie  in  her  dilemma.  And  I 
know  now  why  she  would  not  tell  me  her  lover's  name. 
You  were  a  relative.  There  is  much  that  is  fine  in  Bernie. 
But,  Gordon,  it  hasn't  had  a  chance.  Oh,  I'm  so  overwhelmed 
with  everything  turning  out  this  way  that  I  don't  know 
what  to  do  or  say." 

"I  bothered  you  to-night,  Madge,  because  i  delayed  my 
departure  almost  ten  days  now,  awaiting  your  return.  I 
had  to  see  you  and  say  this  personally.  I  felt  it  would  be 
yellow  to  leave  it  to  a  letter.  I  am  leaving  for  Chicago  at 
midnight.  Bernice  and  I  are  going  to  Pittsfield,  Kansas,  as 
soon  as  we  are  married.  I  am  going  out  to  manage  an  iron 
works  out  there.  If  we're  unable  to  return  east  for  your 
wedding,  I  want  you  to  let  me  offer  you  all  my  good  wishes, 
now  —  to-night.  Forge  is  a  lucky  dog,  with  your  life  in  his 
keeping.  I  feel  sure  he  appreciates  it.  You  would  not  love 
him  enough  to  marry  him  if  he  lacked  the  capacity  for  such 
appreciation." 

Madelaine  moved  across  to  Gordon  then.  She  lifted  her 
hands  to  his  shoulders  and  stood  looking  up  into  his  war- 
hardened  face. 

"Gordon,"  she  said  softly,  "you're  doing  a  big  thing. 
You'll  be  happy  because  you  are  doing  it.  I  can  see  it  in 
your  eyes  already.  I  know  you  will  make  Bernie's  hard  life 
very  rich.  But  I  want  to  say  more  than  that.  I  want  to  tell 
you  that  I  have  loved  you  —  loved  you  from  the  night  you 
came  to  my  room  down  in  Boston  and  showed  me  you  had 
taken  stock  of  yourself  and  your  birthright  and  were  going 
to  play  the  man.  It  wasn't  a  romantic  love,  Gordon.  It  was 
the  love  of  a  sister  for  a  very  dear  brother.  And  that  love 
is  still  yours,  Gordon.  You  may  carry  it  away  with  you 
and  retain  it  always.  God  has  been  very  good  to  the  homeless 
waif  that  is  myself.  He  has  given  me  a  very  dear  foster- 
mother.  More  than  that,  he  has  sent  two  fine,  virile  men 
into  my  life.  And  they  hold  my  heart  in  their  powerful 
hands  between  them.  What  more  could  a  girl  ask?" 

Gordon  took  both  hands  and  kissed  them  again.  And 
Madelaine,  placed  one  arm  around  Gordon's  neck  —  drew 
him  down  —  kissed  him  on  the  forehead. 


EAST  IS  WEST  483 

The  man  blindly  fumbled  in  his  pocket.  He  pulled  from 
it  a  little  wine-colored  box  of  plush. 

"I  want  you  to  keep  it,  Madelaine.  To  remember  me  by, 
in  the  years  ahead.  Aunt  Gracia  let  me  have  it,  and  I  had 
the  stone  put  in  a  slightly  different  setting.  Please  wear 
it  —  on  your  right  hand  —  as  a  sort  of  personal  wedding 

gift." 

She  let  him  slip  the  ring  on  her  right  third  finger. 

"I  want  him  to  meet  you,  Gordon,"  she  said. 

They  went  downstairs  and  across  to  the  porch  door.  As 
she  came  through,  she  heard  her  mother's  voice  explaining 
something  to  Nathan,  who  sat  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees, 
leaned  forward,  face  thoughtful.  "  —  and  the  war  sent  their 
value  up  scandalously  and  Madelaine  will  get  almost  a  mil 
lion  that  will  require  a  good  business  man's  oversight " 

Mrs.  Theddon  stopped  abruptly  and  raised  her  eyes  to  her 
daughter's  crimson  face.  "Well,  dear?"  she  stammered,  as 
though  she  had  been  caught  in  a  misdemeanor. 

"I  want  Nathan  and  Gordon  to  meet.  He's  here  in  the 
drawing-room." 

"Have  him  out,  by  all  means,"  declared  Mrs.  Theddon, 
arising. 

Gordon's  tall  figure  stood  outlined  for  a  moment  in  the 
veranda  door.  It  was  Mrs.  Theddon  who  introduced  them. 

Two  weather-bronzed  men  in  khaki,  fresh  from  the  wars, 
looked  in  each  other's  eyes,  —  level  and  straight.  Then  their 
hands  came  together. 

*.  .  .  and  there  shall  be  neither  east  nor  west, 

Nor  pride  nor  pain  nor  birth, 
When  two  strong  men  meet  face  to  face, 
Tho'  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

VIA   LOHENGRIN 


While  perhaps  it  may  perturb  strict  sticklers  for  etiquette, 
nevertheless  my  own  marital  status  was  ignored  and  at 
Nathan's  earnest  solicitation  I  was  best  man  at  his  wedding. 

Never  did  weeks  speed  past  so  swiftly  as  they  did  that 
summer.  October  was  approaching  almost  before  we  realized 
it,  least  of  all  Nathan.  What  with  acclimating  himself  at 
his  new  work,  house-planning  with  Madelaine  in  those 
roseate  New  York  days  which  followed,  attending  to  the 
thousand  and  one  details  having  to  do  with  his  approaching 
state  as  a  benedict  again,  he  was  grateful  when  the  time  sepa 
rating  him  from  the  Great  Day  narrowed  down  to  a  week, 
then  three  days,  then  two,  then  one,  —  grateful  entirely  out 
side  his  anticipation  of  having  Madelaine  with  him  perma 
nently. 

Three  weeks  before  the  event,  the  invitations  had  been 
mailed,  and  it  was  pathetic  when  Madelaine  applied  to  her 
lover  for  a  list  of  those  he  wished  to  invite  to  the  nuptials. 

"List?"  he  laughed  sadly.  "It's  a  rather  short  list,  dear 
girl.  The  Thornes,  Caleb  Gridley,  Mother  and  Edith,  old 
Sam  Hod  who  published  my  first  bally  poems  in  his  paper. 
And  —  and  —  that's  about  all,  I  guess.  Bill  and  his  wife,  of 
course,  though  Bill's  acting  as  best  man." 

It  was  a  pretentious  wedding.  It  seemed  as  though  every 
body  of  consequence  in  Springfield  was  invited.  Madelaine's 
maids  of  honor  were  old  school  chums  from  Mount  Hadley 
days.  The  gifts  covered  two  great  tables,  facetiously  men 
tioned  by  Murfins  and  old  Steb  in  the  servants'  quarters  as 
"the  great  American  pickle-dish  exhibit".  Two  days  before 
hand  a  rehearsal  was  held  in  which  every  one  seemed  as 
painfully  self-conscious  as  possible  and  managed  to  get 
twisted  up  and  in  each  other's  way  and  permit  confusion  to 


VIA  LOHENGRIN  485 

reign  supreme.    But  through  it  all  Madelaine  never  once  lost 
her  head  and  was  its  soul  and  guiding  spirit. 

The  ceremony  was  scheduled  for  four  o'clock,  and  Christ 
Church  was  a  mammoth  conservatory  of  flowers  a  day  and 
a  night  beforehand.  Then  the  evening  before  the  great  day, 
Mrs.  Anna  Forge  and  Edith  arrived  in  Springfield,  and 
Madelaine  went  with  Nathan  to  the  station  to  meet  them  and 
have  dinner  with  them,  that  the  mother  might  meet  her  son's 
new  wife  informally. 

II 

Nathan  was  a  little  ..aicen  aback  when  he  saw  his  mother 
and  sister.  Mrs.  Forge  had  lost  height  and  weight ;  she  was 
a  poor,  pucker-faced,  broken-down,  little  old  lady.  Nathan 
knew  her  to  be  fifty-three.  She  looked  seventy.  He  felt 
a  heart-stab  when  he  saw  her  clothing,  it  was  so  poor  and 
threadbare  and  out  of  taste.  And  Edith! 

Edith  was  now  the  "mother  of  seven !"  Verily!  She  had 
grown  into  a  tall,  awkward,  raw-boned  woman  with  a  coarse 
face,  sloppy  cornflower  hair  and  a  hat  which  resembled  a 
cross  between  a  basket  of  flowers  and  a  fried  egg.  The 
broken  status  of  her  corsets  was  immediately  noticeable 
when  she  had  removed  her  outer  cloak,  and  her  skirt  hung 
lower  in  the  rear  than  in  the  front.  She  was  messy  —  along 
side  Madelaine  —  and  looked  as  though  she  had  hurriedly 
dropped  a  gummy  baby  in  a  clothes  basket  while  she  threw  on 
any  clothes  lying  handy  to  come  to  her  brother's  "swell 
weddin.' " 

Mrs.  Forge  clung  to  Nathan  hysterically  when  she  met 
him  on  the  station  platform.  And  she  wept  openly  when 
Madelaine  took  her  unceremoniously  in  her  arms  and  kissed 
her.  They  went  to  the  Worthy  for  rooms  and  dinner. 

Madelaine  waited  in  the  ladies'  parlor  while  Nathan  went 
up  with  his  relatives.  Edith  first  entered  the  room  which 
Nathan  had  reserved  as  though  her  footfalls  profaned  the 
very  carpets. 

"My  Gawd,  what  class!"  she  cried  blankly.  "Nat,  is  she 
worth  a  million  dollars  —  on  the  level  ?" 

Nathan  laughed.  That  was  the  only  feature  of  the  forth 
coming  alliance  to  mar  his  perfect  happiness.  Madelaine 
was  worth  a  million  dollars.  It  was  awkward. 


486  THE  FOG 

"I  guess  so,"  he  responded  carelessly. 

"You  guess  so!  My  Gawd,  don't  you  know?  I  should 
think  that'd  be  the  first  thing " 

"I'll  have  to  go  back  and  stay  with  Madelaine,"  the  brother 
interrupted.  "Come  down  as  soon  as  you're  ready."  He 
counted  out  money.  "Take  this,  mother.  And  to-morrow 
morning  buy  yourself  something  out  of  the  ordinary  for 
clothes.  Please!  I  wish  it!" 

When  he  had  gone,  Edith  flounced  down  on  the  bed,  dis 
covered  the  resiliency  of  the  springs,  and  bobbed  up  and 
down,  testing  them. 

"She's  a  cuckoo,  Ma!"  declared  the  daughter,  anent  Made 
laine.  "But  I  bet  a  hat  right  now  there  ain't  goin'  to  be 
much  family  visitin'  back  and  forth!  Lord,  if  she  ever  come 
into  my  shack,  and  Joe  and  all  the  kids  piled  in  to  give  her 
the  once-over,  somebody'd  have  to  stick  their  feet  out  the 
window  to  leave  room  to  breathe.  She'd  take  more  gorgeous 
space  than  all  the  rest  of  us  put  together,  includin'  a  ward 
robe  trunk!" 

"I  think  she's  a  dear,"  announced  Mrs.  Forge.  "She's  so 
democratic." 

"I'd  give  ten  dollars  to  know  what  she  sees  in  Nat,  though. 
Huh!  It  warn't  so  awful  long  ago  we  was  all  takin'  Satur 
day  night  baths  up  in  Paris  and  undressin'  together  in  the 
kitchen  because  the  upstairs  rooms  was  cold.  A  million 
bucks !  Can  you  beat  it,  Ma !  Wonder  how  much  her  hat 
cost?" 

They  went  down  into  the  Worthy  dining  room.  Made 
laine  chose  a  table  beside  a  north  window.  Mrs.  Forge 
and  Edith  promptly  put  on  their  "manners." 

Mother  and  daughter  —  absolutely  dumb  in  the  presence 
of  a  colored  waiter  and  a  million-dollar-bride-to-be  —  said 
they  guessed  they  wasn't  a  bit  hungry,  and  yet  at  each  of 
Nat's  suggestions  from  the  menu  they  nodded  their  heads 
avidly.  Madelaine  tried  her  best  to  put  the  two  at  their  ease, 
but  it  was  a  sorry  business.  Mrs.  Forge  and  Edith  "knew 
how  to  behave  in  company",  which  was  to  act  as  stiff  and  un 
natural  and  wooden  as  possible  and  assume  that  every  one 
in  the  dining  room  was  watching  them  like  jewelry  thieves. 

The  Indian  summer  night  was  lazily  warm.  The  windows 
were  open.  Over  in  the  southwest  corner  a  group  of  Dart 
mouth  alumni  men  were  holding  a  reunion  supper. 


VIA  LOHENGRIN  487 

"My  stars!"  whispered  Mrs.  Forge  to  Nathan,  "they're 
drinkin'  licker!  You  don't  drink  licker,  do  you,  Nathan?" 

Nathan  affirmed  that  he  did  not  drink  "licker"  and  then 
he  turned  his  head  away  and  looked  out  of  the  window  upon 
his  left  as  the  college  men  broke  into  roistering  song. 

Outside  on  the  curbing  a  young  man  stopped  and  gazed  up 
into  the  room. 

"Madge,"  said  Nathan  thickly,  "one  night,  several  years 
ago,  I  stood  outside  like  that,  and  looked  up  at  a  fellow  and 
girl  sitting  here  just  like  this " 

A  quick  exclamation.  Madelaine  had  overturned  a  water 
glass. 

"Was  that  you,  Nathan  ?"  she  cried,  astounded.  "So  that's 
where  you  saw  me  first?  Well,  foolish  boy,  just  for  that, 
the  title  of  your  damage-making  little  old  poem  was  'Girl- 
Without-a-Name.'  And  I  was  conceited  enough  to  think  it 
was  written  for  me,  and  no  one  else." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Nathan  gravely,  "it  was!    Who  knows?" 

Edith  was  rather  glad  to  see  Madelaine  tip  over  her  water 
glass.  It  just  went  to  prove  that  even  The  Best  People, 
Millionairesses,  those  who  Had  Money,  did  such  things.  She 
cast  a  glance  at  her  mother  as  much  as  to  say,  "You  see! 
She  isn't  such  a  Thingumbob  after  all.  She  tips  over  her 
water  glass  at  table !" 

in 

The  Day! 

For  perfection  of  weather,  only  one  other  day  in  Nathan's 
experience  had  surpassed  it,  the  high  noon  in  Siberia  when 
he  had  seen  a  splash  of  vivid  scarlet  against  sharp  cobalt  and 
golden  brown. 

I  made  a  trip  up  to  the  church  around  noon  for  some  de 
tail,  when  the  florists  had  called  their  work  complete.  I 
stood  by  the  door  for  a  moment  and  felt  prayful  with  the 
beauty  and  portent  of  it.  The  chancel  had  been  almost 
smothered  in  fine  palms.  There  were  banks  and  vases  of  cut 
flowers  on  the  altar.  Wreaths  were  draped  about  the  reading 
desk,  chancel  rail  and  choir  stall,  and  a  rope  of  flowers 
cast  across  the  center  aisle  instead  of  white  ribbon,  reserv 
ing  the  first  six  pews  for  relatives  and  special  guests. 

Anticipating  her  daughter's  departure  by  a  few  minutes, 


488  THE  FOG 

at  a  quarter  to  four  Mrs.  Theddon  entered  her  car  with  old 
Amos  Ruggles,  who  was  to  give  the  bride  away,  and  who 
never  looked  more  vacuous  or  pop-eyed  in  his  life.  Arriv 
ing  at  the  church,  she  entered  on  the  head  usher's  arm  and 
then  to  the  door  came  the  motors  of  the  bridal  party. 

Vestibule  and  center  aisle  were  cleared  of  guests  when  the 
bridal  party  arrived.  Doors  to  street  and  church  were 
closed.  At  five  minutes  to  four,  the  bride  and  her  maids 
assembled.  An  electric  word  came  to  Nathan  and  myself, 
waiting  in  a  side  room  behind  the  chancel,  that  Madelaine 
and  her  party  had  arrived.  The  organist  was  on  the 
alert  for  the  opening  of  the  great  doors  at  the  far  end 
of  the  center  aisle.  The  ceremony  was  a  matter  of  min 
utes. 

It  is  popularly  accepted  that  a  groom  a  few  moments  be 
fore  his  marriage  must  be  flustrated,  senseless  and  speech 
less,  a  comic  object  generally  and  only  acceptable  because 
if  he  failed  to  put  in  appearance  the  wedding  machine  might 
have  a  minor  cog  missing  somewhere,  causing  it  to  rasp 
horribly.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  grooms  are  quite  cool 
and  collected,  —  at  least  outwardly.  They  may  misplace  a 
few  little  things  of  minor  importance,  such  as  hats,  railroad 
tickets  or  sense  of  humor.  But  on  the  whole,  they  really 
know  a  surprising  lot  of  what  it's  all  about  and  why  they 
are  there  and  what  the  outcome  of  the  entire  tuss  may  aggre 
gate.  Nathan  was  no  exception. 

He  had  not  seen  Madelaine  that  morning;  he  had  break 
fasted  and  lunched  with  me  and  we  had  reached  the  church 
at  about  three- forty-five.  I  was  agreeably  surprised  at  sight 
of  him  in  his  wedding  clothes,  —  black  cutaway,  gray  trou 
sers,  white  waistcoat,  gray  suede  gloves.  It  came  to  me  with 
a  smash  that  my  little  freckled-faced  friend  of  the  Foxboro 
schoolyard  had  flowered  into  a  handsome  man.  Not  the 
Gordon-Ruggles,  matinee-idol  type  of  handsomeness,  but  the 
rugged  individuality  of  the  male  who  has  his  fundamentals 
established,  who  has  found  himself  and  carries  the  whole 
struggle  on  firm  features. 

"Well,  Bill,  old  man,"  he  said,  as  we  waited  for  the  great 
signal,  "it's  come!  The  day  and  the  hour  we  talked  about 
one  night  down  the  Green  River  in  the  old  red  scow.  Re 
member  ?" 

"Yes,  Nat,"  I  returned.    "How  can  either  of  us  forget?" 


VIA  LOHENGRIN  489 

"There  is  a  God,  Bill.  And  He  is  good.  We  talked  about 
Him  too,  if  I  recall  correctly." 

"At  least  I've  never  doubted,"  said  I,  "that  He's  on  the 
side  of  the  chap  who  tries  to  do  the  best  he*  can." 

Those  were  the  last  words  I  ever  spoke  to  my  lifelong 
friend  as  a  single  man.  At  that  moment  word  came  that 
Madelaine  was  ready. 

Into  the  chancel  he  went  behind  the  rector  and  I  followed. 
Outside  the  communion  rail  he  stood  facing  that  great  church 
of  faces,  manner  grave  but  easy,  a  man  in  perfect  control 
of  himself. 

Neither  of  us  chanced  to  be  looking  at  the  end  of  the  mid 
aisle  when  the  sexton  opened  the  big  doors.  A  sudden  peal 
of  music  from  the  high  organ  over  our  heads  announced 
that  Nathan's  Woman  Beautiful  was  advancing  to  become 
his  wife. 

The  wedding  was  on! 

The  ushers  came  first,  walking  two  and  two  with  the 
train  of  bridesmaids  behind.  A  vast,  motionless  hush  fell 
over  that  church  as  the  wedding  party  moved  toward  the 
chancel  and  the  bride  came  into  view.  Several  women  had 
their  handkerchiefs  ready  to  enjoy  themselves.  They  did. 
At  the  profusion  of  autumnal  flowers,  the  afternoon  sun 
light  flooding  richly  through  the  huge  stained-glass  window 
high  on  the  left,  Madelaine  advancing  behind  her  maids  on 
the  arm  of  old  "Am"  Ruggles,  —  a  choke  came  in  my  own 
throat,  I'll  admit,  and  I  teetered  on  the  verge  of  making 
an  ass  of  myself  and  spoiling  my  make-up  generally. 

Madelaine  was  wonderfully  gowned,  with  a  sweeping 
train.  From  her  dusky  coiffure  fell  a  long  tulle  veil.  She 
carried  a  mammoth  bouquet  of  American  Beauty  roses.  Her 
face  was  flushed.  She  was  happy  in  that  moment ;  it  radiated 
from  her. 

She  slipped  her  hand  from  old  "Am's"  arm  and  the  music 
suddenly  died  away.  The  church  was  very  quiet.  A  pause. 

"In  the  name  of  God,  Amen!" 

There  was  no  blur  in  Nathan's  mind  now,  no  wonder  what 
another  girl  was  doing,  no  wandering  memories.  He  was 
paying  attention.  Oh,  very  much  he  was  paying  attention. 

Old  Amos  waited  beside  Madelaine  during  the  preliminary 
exhortation.  Then  Madelaine  gave  her  maid  of  honor  her 
bouquet  and  when  the  rector  demanded,  "Who  giveth  this 


490  THE  FOG 

woman  away?"  old  Amos  allowed  he  gaveth  this  woman 
away  with  an  "I  do!"  which  suggested  he  had  kept  the 
words  locked  in  his  system  for  weeks,  for  months,  and  the 
relief  of  letting  them  explode  at  last  was  almost  sleep-pro 
ducing.  Then  he  turned,  and  his  saucer  eyes  demanded, 
"Now,  bless  my  soul!  Whereabouts  do  I  find  myself,  any 
how?"  And  finding  himself  at  a  wedding  and  the  observed 
of  all  observers,  he  spatted  his  way  to  a  pew  seat  and  sat 
down  and  twirled  his  thumbs  and  looked  wise  as  a  serpent 
and  harmless  as  a  dove.  And  the  wedding  went  on. 

Nathan  was  married  again.  The  ceremony  was  finished. 
The  blessing  was  spoken.  And  the  man  was  glad,  glad. 

With  her  left  hand  on  the  arm  of  her  new  husband,  Made- 
laine  turned  with  him  to  leave  the  altar.  At  that  instant  the 
great  organ  was  given  its  leash.  Thunderously  above  us  all, 
it  pealed  into  a  ringing  march  of  triumph.  The  very  church 
arches  shook  with  the  delirium  of  it.  The  little  flower  girls 
who  had  brought  up  the  rear  of  the  procession  now  turned 
and  were  prompted  forward.  And  down  the  aisle  my  friend 
and  the  woman  who  loved  him  moved  forward  to  happiness 
on  a  carpet  of  flowers. 

Millions  of  unborn  men  and  women  are  yet  to  be  married 
and  given  in  marriage.  But  no  wedding  ceremony  will  ever 
pass  off  with  such  velvet  perfection  and  infinite  smoothness. 

In  the  vestibule  Nathan  received  hat,  gloves  and  stick. 
The  Theddon  motor  was  waiting.  In  a  moment  the  pair 
were  seated  therein  and  it  had  eased  away  from  the  Chest 
nut  Street  curbing. 

Alone  in  the  limousine,  as  it  purred  down  South  Main 
Street  toward  Long  Hill  and  the  wedding  reception,  Made- 
laine  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"Well,  laddie,  I'm  yours,"  she  said  simply.  "And  I'm 
so  happy  that  it's  my  turn  to  dream  now.  And  I  pray  the 
dear  Lord  I  never  awake." 

Nathan's  great  talon  claw  stole  out  and  completely  oblit 
erated  her  right  hand. 

"You'll  never  awaken  if  I  can  help  it,  dear,"  he  said 
huskily.  "And  I  have  a  quaint  idea  that  I  can." 

Yet  there  was  more  happiness  in  store  for  them  that  aft 
ernoon. 


VIA  LOHENGRIN  491 


IV 

The  Theddon  drawing-room  was  opened  to  its  fullest  and 
banked  with  more  flowers.  The  motors  which  had  followed 
began  to  empty  bridesmaids,  ushers  and  invited  guests.  Bride 
and  groom  stood  before  a  solid  screen  of  cut  flowers  with 
Gracia  Theddon  in  silver-gray. 

And  almost  the  first  person  to  appear  with  congratulations 
and  good  wishes  was  —  old  Caleb  Gridley ! 

If  Nathan  lost  his  head  that  day,  it  was  when  he  recog 
nized  Caleb  and  blinked  at  him  stupidly.  It  was  their  first 
meeting  in  two  years.  Gridley  had  been  "out  west"  on  farm 
mortgage  business  for  the  People's  Bank  and  as  usual  had 
barely  arrived  in  time  for  the  ceremony.  But  it  was  because 
old  Caleb  had  changed  that  Nathan  stared  in  stupefac 
tion.  Was  this  —  could  it  be  —  old  Gridley  of  the  tannery 
office? 

Caleb  was  clean-shaven  and  dressed  in  afternoon  clothes 
which  the  most  fastidious  authority  on  male  attire  could  not 
criticize.  His  iron  hair  was  no  longer  a  wiry,  unruly  mass. 
A  heroic  barber  had  conquered  it  and  old  Caleb  with  his  pon 
derous  size,  big  shoulders,  flawless  clothes,  was  the  most  dis 
tinguished  man  in  that  drawing-room,  not  excepting  the 
groom  himself.  He  still  had  the  paving-block  jaw.  But 
his  ugly,  tobacco-stained  incisors  were  gone.  He  displayed 
two  rows  of  fine,  even  teeth,  though  he  did  remove  them 
at  night  "to  get  some  mouth  comfort  in  his  sleep"  as  he 
expressed  it  afterward. 

Old  Caleb  had  suddenly  emerged  from  a  chrysalis  of 
small-town  mediocrity  into  a  gentleman  of  the  world.  He 
had  left  backwater  and  stroked  out  into  strong,  main  cur 
rent.  He  was  a  personage  of  parts. 

But  still  more  than  his  altered  appearance  was  making 
Nathan  stare.  It  was  the  tableau  occurring  near  the  door. 
Old  Caleb  had  come  face  to  face  with  Gracia  Theddon. 
And  Madelaine's  foster-mother  was  very  near  to  fainting. 
She  had  one  hand  at  her  heart  and  the  other  was  clutching 
the  edge  of  a  table  behind  her. 

"Caleb !"  she  cried  hoarsely. 

"B'damn!"  was  all  Caleb  could  articulate.  Showing  that 
in  a  flower-banked  drawing-room  amid  bevies  of  ladies,  there 


492  THE  FOG 

were  still  a  few  trifling  irregularities  in  his  culture  that  left 
room  for  improvement. 

Nathan  stepped  forward. 

"You  know  Mrs.  Theddon,  Mr.  Gridley?" 

Caleb  beheld  his  altered  protege  as  in  a  daze.  "It  was  an 
afternoon  of  daisies,"  or  dazes,  as  Edith  expressed  it  after 
ward. 

"You  an'  me  writ  a  poem  about  her  once,  didn't  we  ?"  was 
the  tanner's  perturbing  demand  before  those  wondering 
guests.  "Know  her?— Bub! —  Bub!  — To  think  it's  all 
ended  here  —  Gracie  Hemin'way !" 

Mrs.  Theddon  fought  for  self-possession  and  won. 

"Mr.  Gridley  and  myself  knew  each  other  very  intimately 
when  we  were  in  our  twenties,"  she  announced. 

The  guests  were  arriving  and  crowding  in  and  old  Caleb 
had  to  give  way.  But  he  gripped  Madelaine's  hand  with  a 
palm  which  had  thrown  hides  for  twenty  years  and  could 
not  exactly  be  described  as  "moonbeam."  He  cried  husk- 
ily: 

"Ma'am  —  you  got  the  finest  boy  in  the  world,  b'damn  if 
you  haven't !  Only  you  got  to  see  the  unholy  scrapes  he  can 
get  into,  to  find  it  out.  Same  as  me.  We  writ  poetry,  once, 
ma'am.  B'damn  if  we  didn't  write  perty  good  poetry.  I 
congratulate  you,  ma'am.  This  is  a  scrumpshus  occasion  — 
a  dam'  fine  one !" 

Madelaine  laughed  merrily. 

"You're  so  good,  Mr.  Gridley.  You're  going  to  be  one 
of  my  dearest  friends,  because  you've  been  Nathan's.  He's 
told  me  all  about  you.  He  said  you  were  the  only  real  father 
he'd  ever  known." 

"Did  he  now?  Well,  just  goes  to  show  what  excellent 
judgment  he's  got !  Haven't  had  much  time  to  do  no  letter- 
writin'  or  send  presents,  but  I  guess  it  ain't  too  late  to  pay 
my  respects  and  show  how  I  allus  appreciated  Nat's  readin' 
me  poetry.  Take  this  here.  I  gotta  go  see  a  man !" 

Caleb  said  this  last  suddenly  and  a  bit  wildly.  He  had  no 
man  to  "see"  but  he  did  have  to  get  away  before  he  choked 
so  tightly  he  could  only  gurgle.  With  his  declaration,  how 
ever,  he  pressed  a  bit  of  heavy,  crinkled,  folded  paper  into 
Madelaine's  palm. 

Madelaine  laughed  again  and  thanked  him  and  handed  it 
to  her  husband.  Nathan  shoved  it  in  the  pocket  of  his  waist- 


VIA  LOHENGRIN  493 

coat.     The  reception  was  well  over  before  he  thought  to 
look  at  it. 

It  was  old  Caleb's  check,  drawn  on  a  Boston  bank  for  ten 
thousand  dollars. 


But  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Forge,  nee  Theddon,  never  knew  how 
truly  she  spoke,  nor  significantly,  when  she  declared  that  old 
Caleb  was  to  be  one  of  her  dearest  friends  because  he  had 
been  Nathan's.  And  for  a  reason  entirely  apart  from  her 
husband. 

After  her  supper  to  her  bridesmaids,  Madelaine  slipped 
upstairs  to  change  into  her  traveling  suit.  Her  mother  had 
been  unpardonably  missing  for  over  an  hour.  Having  occa 
sion  to  enter  the  upper  library,  Madelaine  drew  back  aghast. 

Her  mother  was  in  there  alone  with  old  Caleb.  Her  mother 
was  sobbing.  But  her  mother  was  merely  exercising  sweet 
woman's  prerogative  to  weep  gloriously  and  copiously,  in 
proof  that  she  was  happy,  happy,  happy. 

Madelaine  turned  blank  of  face  from  what  she  had  seen. 
She  met  Nathan  on  the  stairs.  She  caught  her  husband  and 
spoke  in  swift  and  stupefied  whispers. 

Nathan  grinned.     Yes,  he  did! 

"Oh,  well,  Girl-o'-Mine,"  he  admonished.  "We  needn't 
be  selfish  and  demand  a  monopoly  of  all  the  happiness  that's 
going  around  to-day.  The  springtime  of  life  is  all  fine  and 
wonderful.  But  we've  got  to  admit  there's  many  a  love 
flower  that  blossoms  in  Indian  Summer.  And  it's  usually 
all  the  more  fragrant  and  exquisite  on  that  account.  Where's 
the  telephone?" 

VI 

In  their  rooms  at  The  Worthy  that  night,  after  Madelaine 
and  Nathan  had  left  town,  Mrs.  Anna  Forge  and  Edith 
locked  their  door  carefully.  Mrs.  Forge  had  read  in  news 
papers  of  "strange  men"  who  "prowled"  around  hotel  cor 
ridors. 

"Whew!"  cried  Edith,  flopping  down  in  a  rocker  and 
sprawling  her  ungainly  legs.  "After  all  that  class,  I'm  plumb 
bowled  over.  My  Gawd,  Ma,  think  of  it!  And  Natie's 


494  THE  FOG 

gotta  spend  all  the  rest  of  life  livin'  up  to  it.    Poor  Natie!" 

Mrs.  Forge  stood  by  the  window,  holding  to  the  lace  drape 
and  using  a  badly  overworked  handkerchief  as  it  was  needed 
at  her  features.  Whatever  else  might  be  said  for  Mrs.  Anna 
Forge  in  her  sunset  years,  she  had  not  forgotten  how  to  weep. 

"I  think  it  was  all  heavenly,  Edie.  For  one  afternoon  — 
for  the  first  time  in  all  my  life  —  I  just  reveled  in  it.  And 
I  think  Natie's  the  luckiest  boy  in  the  world." 

"Baggin'  a  million  dollars  ?  You  bet !  But  think  of  havin' 
to  sit  around  all  the  rest  of  life  on  your  manners  and  never 
darin'  to  open  your  mouth  for  fear  o'  puttin'  your  foot  in 
it !  Gawd,  it'd  have  me  in  a  sanatorium  in  a  month !" 

"Nathan's  got  what  he  wanted  and  deserved.  He  can't 
help  but  be  happy  with  that  beautiful  wife  and  surrounded 
by  fine  things." 

"Sufferin'  catfish,  Ma!  You  don't  mean  to  say  you'd 
wanner  live  up  to  it,  too?  Then  it  ain't  hard  to  see  where 
Natie  gets  his  crazy  ideas  for  swell  things  and  manners. 
You  can  knock  Pa  all  you  wanner.  But  he's  my  dad  and  I'm 
his  girl.  And  I  kiss  my  soup  at  table  if  I  feel  like  it,  and  if 
I  wanner  I  loll  'round  the  house  in  a  blanket.  That's  my 
privilege.  No  airs  to  me.  You  always  know  just  where 
to  find  me.  I'm  honest !" 

And  Edith  fully  believed  that  she  was  and  remained 
smugly  content,  the  "mother  of  seven." 

Mrs.  Forge  not  answering  (Mrs.  Forge,  in  fact,  living 
over  the  glories  of  that  wonder-day  with  the  lacklustre  gone 
from  her  pin-point  eyes  and  her  pinched  face  softened,  for 
the  first  time  in  years),  Edith  finally  concluded: 

"Say,  Ma!  Wonder  how  quick  it'd  be  safe  to  'touch'  Nat 
for  a  couple  o'  thousand  —  and  stand  any  show  o'  gettin'  it  ? 
Joe's  gettin'  awful  restless  lately  with  so  many  kids  to  sup 
port.  And  a  couple  thousand  would  give  him  a  swell  start 
in  the  express  business.  Nat  oughta  set  him  up.  It's  his 
duty.  After  all,  he  can't  sneak  outta  the  fact  that  I'm  his 
sister !" 


CHAPTER  XX 
PILL  TOPS 


Their  baby  was  born  the  following  August. 

The  day  of  its  arrival,  Nathan  paced  the  cool,  impersonal 
corridors  of  the  maternity  hospital  like  an  animal  crazed, 
obsessed  with  the  necessity  of  getting  relief  by  tearing  some 
thing. 

He  had  often  smiled  over  the  acclaimed  nervousness  and 
general  distress  of  certain  young  fathers,  awaiting  the  ar 
rival  of  their  first-born.  He  was  not  smiling  now.  Suppose 
the  child  should  cost  Madelaine  her  life?  What  youngster 
could  ever  compensate  for  the  Woman  Beautiful  who  from 
the  first  had  made  matrimony  almost  an  idealist's  dream  ?  If 
he  lost  Madelaine,  he  could  understand  how  fathers  could 
hate  their  offspring. 

But  there  was  to  be  no  occasion  for  any  such  unnatural 
attitude.  At  twenty  minutes  past  three  o'clock,  a  nurse 
came  down  the  elevator  and  accosted  him  with  a  cheery, 
knowing  smile. 

"Congratulations  first,  Mr.  Forge,"  she  cried.  "You  have 
an  eight-pound  son.  Everything's  perfectly  normal  and  your 
wife's  doing  lovely." 

A  son! 

A  hot  knife  went  straight  through  Nathan's  heart  and 
into  his  soul. 

"Come  back  about  six  o'clock,"  the  nurse  advised  him, 
though  Nathan  scarcely  heard.  "You'll  find  your  wife  in 
Room  Eighty-eight." 

A  few  minutes  later  Nathan  left  the  hospital.  He  sped 
blindly  for  a  florist's  to  buy  flowers,  flowers' — millions  of 
flowers.  He  was  boyishly  obsessed  to  buy  flowers. 

Madelaine  was  dozing  when  Nathan  entered  her  room 
at  six  o'clock.  She  turned  her  head  toward  him,  lifting  eyes 


496  THE  FOG 

that  were  still  hollow  and  slightly  glazed  with  suffering. 
But  when  she  recognized  him,  a  coy  smile  showed  about  her 
delicate  mouth. 

"Well,  Mr.  Man?"  she  demanded.  "And  now  what  have 
you  to  say  ?  We  —  have  —  a  —  son !" 

Nathan,  down  beside  the  bed,  buried  his  face  in  her  soft 
mother-throat. 

"If  there  was  only  something  big  I  could  do  to  show  how 
much  I  love  you,  dear,"  he  cried  thickly,  "  —  oh,  God,  if  I 
only  knew  what  to  do " 

"Do  ?  I  thought  we  settled  that  —  the  night  on  the  steam 
ship —  coming  back  from  Japan?  A  similar  'do'  will  be 
quite  sufficient  for  the  present  also." 

She  held  up  her  lips.    He  did. 

It  was  not  until  the  following  morning,  however,  that  Nat 
saw  his  son.  The  nurse  entered  with  a  heavy  roll  of  flannel 
and  laid  the  baby  in  his  arms.  Gently  Nat  pulled  aside  the 
blanketing  and  a  tiny  hand  came  up.  It  was  groping  in  its 
new-born  blindness,  —  groping,  groping,  groping. 

But  it  did  not  grope  fruitlessly.  That  exquisite,  shell-like 
little  palm  found  a  great  talon  claw,  —  the  life-twisted  hand 
of  its  father.  And  it  gripped  that  calloused  Thing  tightly. 
It  could  always  grip  that  calloused  Thing  tightly. 

Nathan's  only  comment  came  in  a  whisper.  To  his  boy 
he  spoke  a  promise: 

"There  shall  be  no  Fog  for  you,  little  son.  As  you  grow 
along  —  your  dad  —  will  understand !" 


Hill  Tops! 

It  was  a  night  in  November.  Darkness  had  fallen  early. 
A  fire  had  been  lighted  in  the  open  grate  and  the  big  south 
ern  living  room  was  pungently  warm.  Shades  had  been 
drawn,  shutting  out  the  dreary  autumn  afterglow.  Aside 
from  the  ruddy  gleam  of  the  crackling  fire,  the  only  illumina 
tion  in  the  apartment  came  from  the  pedestal  lamp  beside  a 
piano.  The  lamp  had  an  old-rose  shade.  All  the  hues  and 
angles  of  the  room  were  softened  and  blended  by  its  rich 
ness. 

Nathan  came  down  the  wide  front  stairs,  tying  the  cords 


HILL  TOPS  497 

of  his  dressing-gown  as  he  descended.  He  turned  into  the 
living  room.  A  few  feet  inside  the  door,  he  paused. 

The  room  was  perfect.  White,  mahogany,  and  old  rose 
was  the  color  scheme.  The  ceiling  was  shaded  and  the 
furniture  was  heavy.  Yet  so  deftly  had  the  latter  been  ar 
ranged  and  so  perfect  the  spacing,  that  the  room  had  an  air 
of  fine  distance  and  perspective;  relaxation  and  rest  was 
the  result  and  it  soothed  like  an  opiate. 

The  man's  artist-eye  could  neither  miss  nor  pass  lightly 
over  the  proportion  and  fastidiousness  that  gave  the  room 
its  character,  —  the  sense  of  perfect  order  without  the  least 
sacrifice  of  comfort.  A  few  oil  paintings  filled  appropriate 
spaces  upon  the  warm  brown  walls.  Smaller  corners  held 
etchings  and  exotic  prints  that  Madelaine  had  brought  from 
Japan.  The  dull  polish  of  the  piano,  writing  tdesk,  music 
cabinet,  table,  reflected  the  glint  of  the  firelight.  An  exquis 
ite  sculptural  study  showed  at  just  the  right  point  in  the 
corner  across  the  heavy  divan  drawn  up  before  the  grate. 
And  as  Nathan  inventoried  these  things,  a  deep  sense  of 
peace  grew  upon  him.  It  entered  into  his  being  with  the 
atmosphere  he  breathed.  An  old  phrase  he  had  used  some 
where  before  whispered  softly  again  in  his  subconscious 
mind,  something  about  "  —  art  drawing-rooms,  softly  shaded 
at  midnight."  This  was  home,  —  his  home!  One  born  to 
such  things  might  never  appreciate  them  as  Nathan  could 
appreciate  them  now. 

He  moved  across.  From  the  carved  black  cherry  box  on 
the  end  of  the  reading  table  he  found  a  Havana.  His  eve 
ning  paper  was  there  also.  He  picked  up  the  paper  and 
went  round  the  divan.  He  sank  down  before  the  fire,  but 
after  lighting  the  cigar  with  all  the  ceremony  of  a  priest 
kindling  a  sacred  altar  flame,  he  did  not  read. 

The  wind  rose  and  drew  the  flames  higher  into  the  deep, 
broad  flue.  Somewhere  out  on  the  Avenue  rose  the  gear- 
clack  and  purr  of  a  'bus.  It  was  a  wild,  melancholy  night 
outside.  It  would  rain  or  snow  before  morning.  But  wind 
nor  weather  had  no  part  or  parcel  with  that  home,  inside. 
The  room  might  have  been  in  a  castle  in  Spain  for  all  the 
drear  outside  weather  had  to  do  with  its  comfort.  The  man 
felt  with  an  overwhelming  emotion  that  he  had  reached  a 
safe  harbor,  —  the  hinterland  of  peace. 

Madelaine  had  been  overseeing  bedtime  rites  in  the  nurs- 


498  THE  FOG 

ery.  Nathan's  cigar  had  scarcely  an  inch  of  finely  powdered 
ash  before  he  heard  his  wife's  step  on  the  stair.  As  though 
he  had  never  been  in  the  room  before,  as  though  it  were 
all  a  dream,  he  turned  his  head  as  she  came  across. 

She  had  put  off  her  dinner  frock  and  was  clothed  now  in 
silken  lingerie  —  soft,  trailing,  beautiful  things  that  accentu 
ated  her  height  and  perfect  figure.  Like  a  cameo  against 
ebony  she  fitted  into  that  room ;  had  she  not  been  its  creator  ? 
She  paused  and  adjusted  her  hair.  Beautiful  hands  they 
were,  that  gleamed  white  and  deft  in  the  half-light,  —  slen 
der,  characterful  hands  for  taste  and  resolute  purpose. 

"Junior  was  a  perfect  dear  about  going  to  bed,"  she  re 
marked  as  she  gave  her  tresses  a  final  pat  and  turned  toward 
her  husband.  "I'll  flatter  your  conceit  enough,  Mr.  Man, 
to  say  that  he  grows  more  like  his  dad  every  day." 

Her  voice  was  vibrant  and  mellow,  like  the  room  and 
the  house.  Queer  how  thoughts  enter  a  man's  mind.  Nathan 
could  not  help  contrasting  Madelaine's  ordering  of  her  home 
and  child  with  Milly's.  Milly  —  given  even  the  same  setting 
—  would  have  had  books,  papers,  interrupted  sewing,  baby's 
clothing  —  oh,  damn  Milly.  A  vast  sense  of  fulfillment 
welled  up  in  Nathan's  throat.  It  veiled  his  vision  for  a 
moment.  What  if  he  had  missed  Madelaine  that  morning  on 
the  Hill  Top? 

Madelaine  saw  her  husband  was  pensive.  She  drew  a 
low  cushion  across  before  Nathan  could  get  it  for  her. 
She  sank  down  at  his  feet,  and  with  a  faint  expression  of 
amusement,  her  dark  eyes  fastened  on  the  flames.  She  re 
mained  that  way  for  a  time,  then  leaned  her  head  over 
against  the  man's  knee.  Nathan's  hand  stole  down  and 
smoothed  her  hair. 

"Happy,  dear?"  she  asked,  as  she  had  asked  a  thousand 
nights. 

"I'm  very  happy,  Madelaine,"  he  said  huskily,  like  a  boy. 

"It  pleases  me  to  have  you  say  that,"  was  the  woman's 
comment. 

"At  the  door,  a  few  moments  ago,  I  had  to  stand  for  a  time 
and  'drink  in'  my  'art  drawing-room  softly  shaded  at  mid 
night.'  This  sort  of  thing  was  what  I'd  dreamed  of,  so 
long,  it  —  well,  it  hurt.  Even  now  it  hurts.  But  it's  a  sweet 
hurt.  That's  the  'hick'  in  me,  I  suppose.  I  can't  get  over  it." 

Madelaine  smiled,  a  bit  sadly.     Reaching  up,  she  drew 


HILL  TOPS  499 

the  hand  despoiling  her  hair  down  beside  her  cheek  and  pat 
ted  it.  (Milly  would  have  reminded  him  curtly  that  he  was 
"mussing  her"  or  asked  him  if  he  thought  she  could  do  her 
hair  a  dozen  times  a  day  just  for  him  to  yank  out  of  place  — 
oh,  damn  Milly ! ) 

"Nathan,  dear,"  the  wife  whispered,  calm  eyes  looking 
deep  in  the  flames,  "pride  in  one's  home  —  appreciation  of 
the  efforts  of  loved  ones  to  please,  is  never  provincial; 
neither  should  a  lifelong  hunger  for  beautiful  things  hurt. 
I  say  that,  Nathan,  and  yet  you  make  me  confess  that  you've 
not  been  alone  in  that  hunger;  you  haven't  been  the  only 
one  who  has  come  into  a  heritage  of  such  things,  to  know 
that  sweet  hurt.  And  remember  too,  dear,  without  earthly 
shadows  we  see  no  high  lights.  It's  the  wealth  of  life  to 
measure  our  happiness  at  last  by  the  price  attainment  has 
cost  us." 

Ill 

"My  Girl  the  Fairies  Brought!"  whispered  Nathan,  after 
a  time.  "I  never  want  to  think  of  her  as  coming  from  any 
where  else.  There  still  are  fairies." 

Madelaine  arose  at  the  end  of  a  half -hour,  despite  her 
husband's  protest. 

"I'm  only  going  above  stairs  to  get  an  envelope,  dear.  It 
holds  two  pieces  of  brown  mapping  with  a  strip  of  newspaper 
pasted  upon  them.  I  want  you  to  take  them  to  an  art  store 
when  you  go  down  to  the  office  in  the  morning.  Have  the 
slip  of  newsprint  remapped  and  put  in  a  copper  frame.  It 
must  hang  over  my  writing  desk  —  permanently." 

"Newsprint?    Copper  frame?    What's  the  idea?" 

"I  want  my  Rosary  out  in  sight,  where  I  can  look  upon 
it  constantly." 

She  rumpled  his  hair.  Then  she  leaned  over  the  back  of 
the  divan.  Her  delicate  lips  were  very  close.  He  did. 


IV 

As  I  draw  this  intimate  biography  to  a  close,  they  are 
sleeping  in  my  house,  two  doors  down  this  upper  hallway 
from  my  study.  Nathan  came  to  Paris  this  week-end  to 


Soo  THE  FOG 

visit  his  home  office  about  business  in  England  next  month. 
He  made  a  motor-trip  of  it  and  brought  Madelaine,  Nathan 
Junior  and  Junior's  nurse. 

Mary  Ann  gave  a  dinner  for  them  to-night.  Many  of 
our  friends  among  the  Preston-Hill  set,  as  our  summer  col 
ony  is  known,  were  invited,  notable  among  them  Mrs.  Perci- 
val  Mosely.  The  Moselys  have  lately  bought  a  summer 
place  here  in  Paris  at  the  instigation  of  the  Thornes. 

Mary  Ann's  dinner  was  very  mulch  of  a  success.  It  was 
aided  toward  that  end  by  Madelaine,  —  mightily  so. 

A  score  of  times  to-night  I  caught  myself  staring  rudely 
at  Nathan's  wife.  With  smashing  beauty  of  face,  figure  and 
gown,  and  a  personal  charm  beyond  all  clumsy  male  adjec 
tives,  she  kept  that  table  on  qui  vvve  with  her  bon  mots  and 
delicious  repartee  —  eyes  shining,  cheeks  flushed,  ruby  lips 
sparkling  —  and  my  cellar  is  not  stocked  with  anything  but 
pumpkins  and  last  season's  peach  preserve,  either.  And  the 
pride  and  happiness  on  her  husband's  face  was  entirely  par 
donable  and  heart-mellowing. 

I  would  conclude  with  Mrs.  Mosely's  remark  to  Mary 
Ann  at  the  door.  Naturally  Mrs.  Mosely  is  a  comparative 
stranger  to  Paris. 

"I've  had  a  truly  wonderful  evening,"  she  cried,  in  her 
smooth  onyx  voice,  "and  I'm  especially  grateful  for  being 
placed  beside  that  young  Mr.  Forge  at  dinner.  I  met  him 
once  in  New  York  but  really  had  no  opportunity  to  make 
his  acquaintance  closely.  Why,  he  told  me  more  about  Rus 
sia  and  Russian  art  than  I've  learned  in  eleven  summers 
abroad.  And  as  for  poetry  —  he  spoke  of  that  new  book 
that's  causing  such  a  sensation  in  New  York :  'Life  Lyrics  of 
a  Tanner',  as  though  he  might  have  written  it  himself.  1 
should  have  liked  to  have  known  his  parents.  Truly,  they 
must  have  been  most  remarkable  people.  Why,  I  haven't 
met  such  a  well-informed,  intelligent,  perfectly  poised  and 
smoothly  polished  young  fellow  in  the  last  dozen  years.  I 
think  he's  perfectly  charming!" 

The  "Life  Lyrics  of  a  Tanner!"  It's  a  great  book.  An 
autographed  copy  lies  here  upon  my  desk,  weighing  down 
my  high  pile  of  manuscript.  Pity  it  was  published  anony 
mously  ! 

For  the  tanner  isn't  old  Caleb  Gridley.  I'll  tell  the  world 
he  isn't.  And  that's  not  army  slang,  either. 


"Ilia  a  chapter  out  of  American  life,  a  vital  and  significant  chapter, 
and  ably  written"  —  Baltimore  Sun. 


THE 

GREATER 

GLORY 

By  WILLIAM  DUDLEY  PELLEY 

With  frontispiece  by  Norman  Price. 

12mo.    Cloth.    376  pages. 


'It  is  a  human  interest  story,  written  by  the  wise  old  editor 
himself  in  his  familiar,  colloquial  style,  with  a  touch  of  humor  here, 
and  a  touch  of  pathos  there,  to  move  the  sentimental  reader. 
Throughout,  there  is  the  warmth  of  human  understanding  of  the 
man  who  has  studied  his  fellow  men  intimately,  for  a  long  time, 
and  who  has  drawn  from  that  study  a  gentle  optimism."  —  Boston 
Transcript. 

"  The  Greater  Glory'  is  pure  gold  in  the  literary  field,  and  it 
will  endure.  When  an  anthology  of  truly  American  novels  is 
compiled,  this  is  our  nomination." —  St.  Louis  Star. 

"  'The  Greater  Glory*  is  decidedly  worth  reading.  It  has  a 
robustness  and  a  genial  warmth  that  are  too  seldom  discovered  in 
the  fiction  of  our  age."  —  The  Boston  Post. 

"A  novel  so  compelling  in  its  challenge,  so  convincing  in  its 
recital  and  so  searching  in  its  analysis  that  it  stands  in  the  first 
rank  of  the  books  of  the  year."  —  Boston  Herald, 

"He  has  produced  one  .of  the  most  readable  and  enjoyable  stories 
of  the  year  —  a  story  of  genuine  human  interest  told  with  a  gentle 
heart  warming  optimism  and  a  kindly  spirit  of  appreciation  of  his 
neighbors  and  spiced  with  appealing  humor."  —  New  Haven 
Journal  Courier, 


LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 
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